One Shot Compilation
by Harmonious Cannons
Summary: A Collection of plots that will never cross the threshold to full story ideas, primarily because they just have nowhere to go, and the muse just drops hints. Will never be complete. May not even be good or sensible always.
1. I killed them I killed them all

**I Killed Them. I Killed Them All.**

* * *

From the Books

* * *

The Death Eater Hermione had just struck dumb made a sudden slashing movement with his wand from which flew a streak of what looked like purple flame. It passed right across Hermione's chest; she gave a tiny "oh!" as though of surprise and then crumpled onto the floor where she lay motionless.

"HERMIONE!"

Harry fell to his knees beside her as Neville crawled rapidly toward her from under the desk, his wand held up in front of him. The Death Eater kicked out hard at Neville's head as he emerged — his foot broke Neville's wand in two and connected with his face — Neville gave a howl of pain and recoiled, clutching his mouth and nose. Harry twisted around, his own wand held high, and saw that the Death Eater had ripped off his mask and was pointing his wand directly at Harry, who recognized the long, pale, twisted face from the _Daily Prophet_ : Antonin Dolohov, the wizard who had murdered the Prewetts. Dolohov grinned. With his free hand, he pointed from the prophecy still clutched in Harry's hand, to himself, then at Hermione.

Though he could no longer speak his meaning could not have been clearer: _Give me the prophecy, or you get the same as her._. . .

"Like you won't kill us all the moment I hand it over anyway!" said Harry. A whine of panic inside his head was preventing him thinking properly. He had one hand on Hermione's shoulder, which was still warm, yet did not dare look at her properly. _Don't let her be dead, don't let her be dead, it's my fault if she's dead._. . .

* * *

End of Matter From the Books

* * *

Hermione's breaths could not be discerned. And in that moment, Harry realised something. He had come to save Sirius. And now he was losing the two people who anchored him to the living. He could not lose Sirius. He most certainly could not lose Hermione. In that moment, he realised that she meant something transcending any definition he could give. She was everything. Life without her in it was unimaginable, unwanted. The realisation changed something inside him. She was not just Hermione Jane Granger, bushy-haired bookworm, best female friend and confidant.

She held his heart. He faintly remembered having heard, "Home is where the heart is." She held his heart. _She was home_.

It also caused an unprecedented effect. It awoke the Power in Harry that his foe knew not.

"Just hold on Hermione. Whatever you choose to do, it will be fine by me. Here or in the Great Beyond, I shall not leave you." His voice was calm and measured. His face was set with a calm smile. "Take care of her, Nev."

Never in his life had Neville known fear as he did when he looked at Harry's eyes as he said those words, and then wonder at the carnage that once was Antonin Dolohov. Harry simply stood and pointed his wand at Dolohov. His magic now responding to the chaos and havoc in his very soul, channelled a spell of such hatred that made the Unforgivables pale in comparison. He first freed Dolohov from the Bell Jar and then cast the curse at him, siphoning off his magic into Hermione. His magic responded to his very need for Dolohov to pay for what he did to Hermione. It was near-miraculous, had the explanation not been magic. In front of his eyes, Neville saw Hermione's injury being healed and watched in awe, as Dolohov was reduced to a bloody gloop, the murderer's magic compensating for what it did to Hermione.

The girl in question nearly vomited as she saw what lay in front of her. She flinched a bit, as Harry strode away to the battle.

"Herbiody!" called Neville. She turned around to her friend and saw his broken nose, deftly healing it.

"What is happening, Neville?" she asked.

"Harry – he has gone mental. When Dolohov nearly killed you, Harry – I don't know, he changed. He just swore to be with you, wherever you chose to be – in life or death, and then he did whatever he did to that scum and used _his_ magic to heal you."

Hermione's eyes widened at the revelation. "We must help him, he will get killed!" was all she said as she rushed after Harry, Neville following in her wake.

"No," responded Neville, "He will probably want to get killed if he doesn't have confirmation that you are alive."

He was in the hallway that led to the room they had just been in. It was obvious that he had not bothered with duelling them. The masks were off of the three Lestranges faces.

"Oooh lookie here," taunted Harry. "Isn't it so cute that you three found time for a nice little family reunion here, Bella?" He spied Neville. Nodding at him, he said, "This is for your parents, Nev." Seeing Hermione beside him, his smile widened. "Oh, so it did work, then. You are the proud owner of Dolohov's magic too, my dear lady." Pointing his wand at Luna, Ron and Ginny who lay stunned and in relative safety, he ordered, "Take care of them, will you? They were badly injured and in danger. I stunned them and Ron is also under stasis... couldn't heal them." Neville and Hermione could only nod and watch in morbid fascination as Harry turned on the Lestranges and spoke in a very silky yet seemingly non-threatening way. "Now, now, don't you think it will be a better use of your magic if it was used to heal those you hurt? I think it will be. What do you say? Oh, how silly of me, I silenced you, didn't I? Well I'll take your silence for a 'yes', then." He removed the silencing charms, first. He wanted to hear them scream.

The same magic now worked on the three Lestranges. As their unearthly screams filled the halls and rooms, all the duellers stopped to look as Harry once again siphoned off their magic and commanded it to heal those that it had hurt but not killed.

Crabbe, Mulciber, Nott, Malfoy, Jugson, McNair, Rookwood and Gibbon watched in terror at the... _whatever it was_ that their fallen comrades had now become.

"Ah, Lucius, how kind it is of you to join us. Please, sit down." Lucius could barely react before he realised that it was what he was doing. He had nothing below the waist in terms of a body. That was his last coherent thought, as he heard Potter say, "How does it feel knowing that your darling families will now pay for what you did to others'?" He couldn't even scream as the magic left him. He had gone into shock, long before he died.

As one, all the other seven engaged Harry, but the assault did not last for longer than about a spell each, for Sirius, Remus, Kingsley, Tonks and Moody chose the moment to make their appearance. Sirius stunned Jugson from behind, just as Moody blasted Rookwood open, eliciting a smile from Harry, who had just dodged or blocked several dark curses including the Unforgivables. Taking advantage of the situation, he stunned everyone, friend and foe alike. He then revived the OotP members, and bade them stand to the side with his friends. "Now, now, don't you think it was very rude of you to deprive me of the chance to do what I wanted to?" He looked at Sirius specifically, and said, "This used to be Cousin Bellatrix, Sirius. And Moody," he said gazing at the grizzled Auror, "You are standing in what used to be Lucius Malfoy."

Harry achieved something nobody barring a stomach bug (probably) had done before. Moody retched involuntarily.

"Now, you shall see vengeance and punishment." The six remaining living Death Eaters soon turned into the same bloody gloop.

Harry calmly made his way to the entry hall of the Ministry, the others following in his wake, too stunned to speak. "Here Tommy, Tommy, where are you? Where are you boy? Who wants the prophecy? Who's a good little Dark Lord?" The pain in his scar told him where Voldemort stood.

"You seem to have a Death Wish, Potter," the Dork Lard said snidely. The rescue party – both the one for Sirius, and the one from the Order – found themselves agreeing with the sentiment involuntarily.

"Oh yes! Did you see what happened to eleven of your minions? They are dead. Only Mad-Eye prevented me from a clean sweep."

If the snake faced dark lord had eyebrows, they would have risen off his scalp as he saw through the boy's feeble mental shields and realised the carnage he had wreaked. However grudgingly, even he had become impressed. "I promise you that I shall punish him for that transgression after I have dealt with you," he replied evenly.

"Not happening, old chap," Harry said as he raised his wand. "Shall we dance?"

"Of course," Voldemort replied formally and politely. Niceties had to be observed after all.

And so it went – the superior skill, spell-repertoire and trained power of the most feared Dark Lord of the Century pitted against his untrained yet extremely powerful and extremely pissed off nemesis. Voldemort, in accordance of the respect that needed to be accorded to respectable opponents, brought out his very darkest and fastest spells with a flourish. He decided not to insult the boy by using Unforgivables. They were too common, too run-of-the-mill. Harry, knowing that he had nothing to lose, felt his magic, and bade it do what he wanted it to. He couldn't get his magic to overpower Voldemort's, due to the strain on his own waning strength, but got it to hurt Voldemort as severely as possible. It was like watching a clash of Titans. Voldemort lost an eye, while Harry lost his left arm in what was beginning to become the duel everyone would remember. By this time, Fudge, his Aurors and the Chief of the DMLE, all had turned up, only to watch, as had Dumbledore. Unfazed, the two went at each other with all they had.

At the very end, Harry, realising that he would have to fight the battle in the thoughts and mind as well, dodged a curse which would have animated his brain and turned it into a small, carnivorous creature which would eat him from inside. What was the one thing that could cripple a person like nothing else? What could hurt a person more than Death, more than any physical injury? The answer was obvious – something that would be painful to the mind. Voldemort had to feel sorrow. Voldemort had to feel regret. Voldemort needed to be filled with remorse, with self-loathing and disgust at his own actions. That was exactly what he made his magic do. A great light shot from Harry's wand to Voldemort and engulfed him. The fear on the snake-faced Dark Lord's snaky face was there for all to see.

"What is this, Potter?" he asked shrilly. "What have you done to me?"

"You, Tom Riddle, will feel the pain and sorrow of every soul that you ever hurt. You will regret ever starting out on the path you have walked on thus far. You shall feel remorse over every single one of your actions." The manic smile on the boy's face never left. Of the people around, only Dumbledore recognised what was happening as his eyes widened in surprise, shock and disbelief.

Six streams of greenish-black smoke rushed from across the country into the Dark Lord, including one from his tormentor.

"NOOOOOOOO!" yelled Voldemort as he writhed on the ground. "NOOOO! STOP THIS, PLEASE, STOP IT! I CAN'T BEAR IT ANYMORE, PLEASE, I AM SORRY! I AM SORRY!" It was an odd sight for the people around, including the reporters who had arrived with the Ministry delegation. To see the person who was supposed to be dead grovelling at the feet of his teenaged opponent made a powerful picture. It would also sell well.

"PLEASE POTTER! STOP THIS! I BEG OF YOU, PLEASE!"

"No."

Harry raised his wand once more and did to the now fully mortal dark lord what he did to his minions. The feel of the magic swirling and building up, drawn from Voldemort and all his followers, raced to correct the wrongs it was never meant to cause overwhelmed the onlookers. And just like that, the most feared Dark Lord of the century was dead, once and for all, taking his minions with him.

Turning to Hermione, Harry said with a blank, but cracked expression, "I killed them. I killed them all. I hated them. Every single Death Eater. And their families too, for good measure. But do you know, Hermione, my dearest? It is never enough. And I have to punish them again. I have embraced truth. There is no light or dark; or good and evil. There only is human nature. There is crime and punishment. And I have to punish." Hermione looked at him with anguish and shock, as she saw him turn his wand.

And then, Harry Potter laughed.


	2. The worst idea spawned - Assumptions

**Assumptions cause horrendous mistakes**

It was after the trauma of seeing Ron kiss, Lavender that Hermione lost it. They had agreed! They had agreed to be each other's dates! He betrayed her. As she sat stewing in her rage, anger and hurt, she never realised someone draw a chair and sit facing her.

Harry sat straddling a chair, his hands resting on its back and his chin resting on his hands, facing Hermione. He had still never lost the guilt he had been feeling ever since he had seen her hurt at the Department of Mysteries. He hated himself then for hurting her, just as much as he hated himself for Sirius' death.

Ever since the start of the sixth-year, he had decided that he would willingly submit to whatever punishment Hermione saw fit to give him. So when she started going after Ron as he had expected, he decided it was a part of his punishment. When she started behaving like Aunt Petunia did, over the book, he accepted the punishment. He accepted her distrust. He accepted the fact that she would not even accept Malfoy being a Death Eater, even theoretically. He accepted her hating him as his punishment

For Harry had decided that even the littlest contact that Hermione would keep with him was enough to get him through. He would be happy serving whatever sentence she gave him, as long as she would be happy. She meant everything to him. She was everything to him.

But what he would never accept was Hermione sad. That was real punishment. It hurt and it was worse than the Cruciatus that he had endured from Voldemort. So he went to her. He would let her vent. He would let her go berserk, and hurt him physically too, if she wanted, if it would bring her out of the funk she was in. That said, if she still remained sad, he would go and punish Ron for hurting her. And then he would make the git forget and punish him again. And he would do so repeatedly. But first, he had to be there for her. And he sat there in the classroom, after locking the door.

"Hermione?"

She looked at him with tear-filled eyes that made his blood boil. He would kill Ron for this. He would show everyone why Voldemort respected him as an opponent. But one look deeper into Hermione's eyes made him quail. She looked furious, almost as if his very existence was causing her immense pain and mental trauma.

"He is enjoying the celebrations, doesn't he?" she asked.

"He may be, or he may not. He means nothing to me. You do."

Hermione snorted as more tears made their way down her cheeks. "Funny you should say that. It was after all your implicit suggestion that won him the match, wasn't it?"

"Well, I had hoped that it would make him happy. And I have seen that you seem to at least like him, if not love him yet, so I had hoped you would be happy. As usual, anything I do, anything I touch turns to dust, don't you think?"

"You are such a good friend, aren't you?" Hermione asked snidely, not refusing what he said.

Harry did not react. It was his punishment.

Hermione changed track. "So how goes it with Ginny?"

"How goes what with Ginny?"

"Please Harry; I have seen the way you look at her..."

"Of course I do! You seem to have forgotten that until last year she had four people to beat back boys if they got too frisky! And mind you, two of them actually had beater bats, so it helped matters. Now she only has one waste of a brother and one sort of brother left in the castle. With Ron proving to be worthless at this big brother job, it falls to me, doesn't it?"

"Big brother?" asked Hermione in confusion. "You don't like Ginny?"

"I like Ginny? I do like her, the same way that Ron or the twins would. While they aren't my family, they are the closest that I have, haven't I?"

"You mean that when you keep staring..."

"Blimey! I don't stare at her! I am really, extremely worried about her escapades. I mean, if she were my sister, I would have dug up a whole so deep that Hagrid and Grawp together would need a year at least to go that deep and bury Dean in it."

Hermione's expression became more confused at that. "I thought you had a crush on her..." Harry's eyes bugged out and he looked distinctly ill and green. Hermione continued nevertheless, "and so you keep staring at her and checking her out..."

She was interrupted by Harry getting violently sick where he had sunk to the floor.

"Harry! What has happened? Are you sick? Do I need to-"

Harry held up a hand to silence her as he felt the dry heaves racking his body. It was another ten minutes before he could clean off the sick and clean his mouth and cast a breath freshening charm. He then fell to his knees in front of Hermione.

"Look Hermione, I know you hate me for everything. I know you hate me for getting you hurt. I know you are punishing me for that. I know that I don't deserve to even be in the presence of a person like you, a person as special as you are. But right now, in a space of fifteen minutes, my punishment has become unbearable. Firstly, I can't see you sad and hurt in any way, and I am witness to that. But then you poisoned my mind with your imagination. Please Hermione, I cannot bear it. Please, please don't expose me to that. I will rather take a vision from Voldemort every waking minute than the terrible mental picture that I got when you said whatever you did."

By now, Hermione's anger and tears had been replaced by frustrated confusion. "What are you talking about? What mental pictures?"

Well, that confirmed to Harry that she did hate him. But she had asked and he was duty bound to answer. "Me crushing after Ginny, or checking her out; it is just so wrong!"

"Why? You two look perfect together! You'd look just like your parents!" she responded.

"GAH!" shouted Harry, theatrically putting his hands on his ears. "I did not hear what she said. I didn't hear what she said. I-"

"HARRY!" she shouted cutting him off. "What are you on about?"

"Hermione! Ginny would never, ever be even remotely someone I'd have a crush on! You answered your own question! We'd look like my mum and dad!"

"So?"

"Hermione, Ginny looks like my mum!" Harry whimpered.

Hermione took one look at the now shuddering Harry, mentally pictured what he had just told her, and then turned quite green herself, before laughing her head off. Harry found solace that she was at least not as sad as she was when he came.

"Yes, go on. Laugh at me, why don't you?"

Hermione couldn't stop laughing long enough to answer. When she did finally, she looked at the now pacing Harry, and promptly burst into laughter again, all thoughts of Ron forgotten. In times of war and fear, a time when her friend was the centre of an intense, violent storm, he was making her laugh about the most Freudian of concepts. When she finally could calm herself, she was still wiping tears of mirth.

"Who do you like then, Harry?" she asked mischievously, all traces of the good cry she had had gone from her demeanour, if not her face.

Harry froze. He knew. He had known since some time of many years gone by that there was a certain girl he liked beyond everyone else. And he had been too scared to tell her that. "There is one," he said, not quite meeting her eyes. Then, in a musing tone, he said, more to himself (though Hermione heard), "I have liked her, respected her for quite some time, probably from the second year, when I thought I'd lost her. I went after another girl to make me stay away from her, because I was scared to lose her if I ever told her what I felt. That; and the fact that I don't truly know what it is that I feel for her, because it is something I had never felt before. I am scared that it might be love, because I lose everyone I love forever. She hates me now, however, and is pining for another guy who has a girlfriend. But that's okay. If he can keep her happy, I'll be happy. I don't deserve her anyway. I have hurt her too many times to count. I suppose the way she behaves with me now is all about punishment; punishment that I deserve. And as far as I am concerned, it will be better that way. I don't expect to survive Voldemort. I will try to take him with me because she deserves to live in a safe world- I owe her that." He didn't look at Hermione, but simply sat on the chair with his back to her, hugging his knees to his chest.

Hermione gasped at that. She understood what he was saying. Whoever this mystery girl was, she was lucky to have Harry feeling what he did for her. Harry loved her, plain and simple. She also felt a smidgen of jealousy- didn't she deserve to have such love? She had to look out for her friend, however.

"Is she a good person, Harry?"

He turned around and looked at her as if she had gone mad. "She is the kindest, cleverest, most loyal, most stubborn and also the most loving person that I have ever met. I have never trusted anyone the way I have trusted her. The one time I didn't, I lost everything, including her," he added in a sorrowful undertone.

It was at the point where he said that Harry trusted this mystery girl the most that she realised who she was. And then she felt ashamed. _She_ had been pining after Ron, who did have a girlfriend. Then the other words percolated into her mind. And it made her want to cry again. Harry was evidently, still blaming himself for Sirius, still blaming himself for what had happened to her. She took the time to review the way she had behaved with him since the start of the term, and that explained why he felt that she hated him. At that moment, Hermione hated herself. She had once hoped that Harry would feel the way he did feel about her. And the reason behind the way he had gone after Cho was explained too. He was scared of losing her. And here, she had been treating him in the worst possible way. She felt like a depraved woman. But that left her with the question- did she love him? What about Ron?

The answer to the second question was rather evident. Ron, whatever he said or did, had a girlfriend- a girlfriend whom he was kissing with abandon. Why should (and would) he dictate her life? As for the first, it was not easy. She had taught herself to restrain her feelings, to recognise that Harry would never feel the way she did. She had decided that she would rather have him in her life as her friend, instead of having him reject her. She should have realised that Harry's poor interpersonal skills would mean that he would always be scared of stating what he thought or felt clearly, unless he was fighting.

What hurt worst however, was his acceptance that he would not survive Voldemort, and so would rather take him along- just so that she could live in safety. He had accepted what little she left of herself to him, even if it was anger and rejection-for that was all she had set aside for him since school started. And he had accepted that as the punishment he deserved for her being cursed. He had become some sort of a hero in a tragedy, where he had accepted that his lot in life was loss and loss alone. And Hermione Granger was never going to let that happen.

Just as Harry let his legs down to the floor to get up, she moved at the speed of light, and was straddling him and holding his face in her hands. She looked deeply into his eyes for a moment before just letting all thoughts go, and just kissed him. She panicked as he froze, but it soon turned to elation as he started responding softly. And in that moment Hermione realised that unless it was battle, Harry never takes charge.


	3. An Interrogation

**An Interrogation**

As the two friends made their way down to the village during the very first Hogsmeade journey of the fourth year to the rendezvous point where they would meet Mad-Eye for a review of their skills, Neville could see that Harry was worried. It never boded well.

"What is it?" he asked urgently.

"I have been compromised."

"Why do you suspect that?"

"I have been fixated on a subject for quite some time now. It drives my attention from more pertinent subjects, important to continued survival and magical skills."

"A compulsion charm?" suggested the brown-haired boy.

"That is one of the most likely routes."

"A Confundus, an Imperius or a sort of potion would be the others."

"Yes, but...

"Yes. We have been checking the ingestible things every time as Master Moody taught us, so the potion is out. I can throw of the Imperius, so that isn't it. A Confundus is still possible, but making it target a wide variety of things except the subject is difficult," Neville enumerated the reasons to eliminate those options.

"Yes."

"Have you any suspects?"

"Several. The subject relates to one of the suspects," Harry replied shortly, not explaining it any further.

"Then we need to have Master Moody direct us regarding the future course of action."

"Yes."

They met Moody just half a kilometre from the usual haunts of the students. The man had disguised himself as a tree. Knowing his predilection to hexing them causing either pain or humiliation or both, the two boys had split about halfway between the point of rendezvous with Moody and the Hog's Head where they could check without causing him to get even more alert than he usually was.

Mad-Eye had been impersonating a tree so well, that a dog had decided to relieve itself on said tree. Even Mad-Eye had a limit to which he could bear things without being disgusted.

"Master Moody," Harry intoned a bit nervously. "I fear I may have been compromised."

"Explain, cadet!" Moody barked.

"I seem to have my attention fixated on a particular subject endlessly, up to and including diversions from subjects required for garnering skills, and academics."

"Suspects?"

"Four. One is directly related to subject."

"Your reading, cadet?" asked Moody of Neville.

"A powerful compulsion charm cast by methods unknown. Undetectable. We have eliminated the Imperius and Confundus, as well as any food- or drink-based adulterant."

"I see." Moody waved his wand around Harry in an intricate pattern. "You test negative for any known sort of mind control, cadet."

"Perhaps this particular type of control bypasses the detection parameters of your spells?"

"Possible." Moody drew out a small vial of veritaserum from his cloak. "Three drops."

"Three drops. Thank you."

* * *

The following day, the Potter parents and the Longbottom parents were all sitting in Dumbledore's office, waiting to know what exactly they had been called to Hogwarts about. It was a bit disconcerting to do that, considering that their parents had never been called to Hogwarts. That it was about the two prophesied children made them worry even more.

Dumbledore surveyed the four, having rested his chin (beard) on steepled fingers. "I think we have all made a slight mistake with the level of control we have given Mad-Eye over the children. We may have to get him to tone things down a bit," Dumbledore said frankly.

"What do you mean, Sir?"

"Take a look into the pensive, James. Indeed, all of you would be well-advised to do so."

And so the four trooped into the pensive to view what was obviously Dumbledore's memory.

 _Neville and Harry were standing at two sides of a room, their postures slightly inclined in such a way that at any given moment, both could see any visible movement at the door, each other and the girl, who was tied to a chair placed directly in front of the door._

 _All of a sudden, Harry poured three drops of what was presumably Veritaserum into the girl's mouth. The questions were very simple._

 _"_ _Have you placed any variation of an Imperius Curse, a Confundus Charm, a Compulsion Charm, or used any sort of mind-control substance, or any other form of mind control on Harry James Potter?"_

 _"_ _No."_

 _"_ _Have you asked or ordered anyone to place any variation of an Imperius Curse, a Confundus Charm, a Compulsion Charm, or used any sort of mind-control substance, or any other form of mind control on Harry James Potter?"_

 _"_ _No."_

 _"_ _Have you suggested to anyone that they should place any variation of an Imperius Curse, a Confundus Charm, a Compulsion Charm, or used any sort of mind-control substance, or any other form of mind control on Harry James Potter?"_

 _"_ _No."_

 _"_ _Have you any plan to place any variation of an Imperius Curse, a Confundus Charm, a Compulsion Charm, or used any sort of mind-control substance, or any other form of mind control on Harry James Potter?"_

 _"_ _No."_

 _"_ _Did you have a plan to place any variation of an Imperius Curse, a Confundus Charm, a Compulsion Charm, or used any sort of mind-control substance, or any other form of mind control on Harry James Potter and act on it directly or indirectly?"_

 _"_ _No."_

 _"_ _Is your name Hermione Jane Granger?"_

 _"_ _Yes."_

 _"_ _Are you an impersonator?"_

 _"_ _No."_

 _That seemingly satisfied Harry. "Thank you for your time, Ms. Granger. You have satisfied my curiosity." The boy then cast a very powerful sleeping charm on the girl, banished the ropes and cured all signs of her being tied, before walking her to the Gryffindor Common Room like a puppet and settling her on the couch._

 _A little while later, he lifted the sleeping spell and woke her gently. The girl blinked owlishly and took in her surroundings, realising that she definitely wasn't in some classroom. She looked at the two boys, and launched into an explanation about having a dream where they had interrogated her under Veritaserum. Then realising that she might be a little under the weather, she took her leave and went up the stairs to the girls' dormitory._

"Pause," commanded Dumbledore. The memory paused. He then turned to look at the four parents.

"Why didn't you stop them?"

"For several reasons," answered Dumbledore calmly. "You must understand that I will have to give them lengthy detentions at the very least. The castle construed this as an attack by one student on another." The parents nodded. That was very obvious. "I was worried that they may have legitimate suspicions, for one. For another, I wanted to know what why they had the suspicions at all. I wanted to know where they procured the Veritaserum from. It is a highly classified substance, after all. And fourthly, I didn't want them to know that I was present."

"Did you find out?" Lily asked with a little irritation.

"I did," Dumbledore answered serenely. "Restart," he commanded.

 _"_ _This is bad," commented Neville._

 _"_ _Indeed it is," agreed Harry._

 _There was a small silence, before Neville asked, "What was the mind-encroaching subject, anyway?"_

 _"_ _Hermione," Harry answered._

 _Neville blinked. "You aren't making any sense."_

 _"_ _The subject which is encroaching upon my mind all the time is Hermione. I have been thinking about her unnecessarily and in uncomfortable ways, at times which should be devoted to following Master Moody's instructions. I also..._ observe _her a lot."_

 _"_ _Oh," replied Neville, clearly at a loss about the whole situation._

The five people trooped out of the pensive.

"What did you understand?"

The four parents looked very ashen-faced. Finally James, in a fit of Gryffindor courage answered, "We have to give the boys The Talk."

* * *

This is an independent one-shot which springs from an H/Hr idea relating to the **Prophetic Intervention**. Mad-Eye has had a large share in helping raise the two children of prophecy.


	4. Stupidity

**Stupidity**

Harry stared at the people who had materialized into the Hall to take him away from 4, Privet Drive for the final time.

"Let me get this straight. Including me, there will be fourteen people flying through the skies tonight, seven of them impersonating me?"

"Yes," growled Moody. "Now that you have shown a modicum of intelligence and understood the plan, move your arse and get on with it!"

"No."

"What?" asked several people in unison.

"No. I am not doing this."

There was a moment of silence before Hermione decided to reason with Harry in her most caring – that is to say, condescending and patronising manner. "Harry, I understand that you don't like the fact that we will be targets, but we have to do this. This is no time to be noble!"

Harry stared at the bushy-haired girl, who haunted his dreams, unlike the redheaded girl who was supposed to, in open shock. Hermione Granger, the brightest witch of her age, the lone espouser of logic in the logic-fearing magical world was going in with this stupid plan. It was an epiphany for him. Hermione was becoming progressively stupid since she came of age in the magical world. The whole of their sixth year was a testament to that fact. " _I bloody well am not going to be an adult wizard, ever!"_ he decided.

Pointing his wand at her, he demanded, "Prove that you are Hermione Jean Granger!"

"This isn't the time for it Harry!" she cried in response.

"Tell me something that only she and I would know. She cut herself off at a word when we were attempting to protect the Philosopher's Stone from the Dark Wanker in our first year. What did you say before that?"

With an extremely irritated and exasperated sigh, Hermione complied, if only to get things moving. "Me?" she parroted. "Books! Cleverness! There are more important things – friendship and bravery and –"

"OK. Stop. You are her. You also said just five minutes before you said that, that wizards had not an ounce of logic. Right now, you are all being so absolutely stupid, that I am wondering how you are all still alive."

The rescue party grumbled. They had not come here to get a dressing down from this uppity whelp.

"Who has that polyjuice?"

"I do," answered Mad-Eye irritably.

"Good. Give me enough for three people for one hour."

"What for?"

"Well, you are going to follow my plan. This one will get us all killed." He turned to Moony and Hermione. "You two come over to my side. Good. Now the rest of you, divide yourselves into pairs and triplets and start making yourself scarce before the three of us leave."

"What is your plan cub?" Remus was reasonably sure that Harry did have something good up his sleeve.

Harry reached into his jeans pocket and retrieved three test tubes. Each contained three different sets of hairs. Turning to Hermione, he assumed his Uncle's voice. "Can you believe the gall of those freaks, Pet? Dressing the little shit up as our Dudders and whisking him away under protection! As if our nice little gentleman could be anything like that little freak!" he spat.

Remus couldn't help it. Oh, this was pure James and Lily combined! He burst out laughing.

Harry resumed his normal voice and winked at his honorary Uncle. "Honestly, Hermione!" he chastised. "You really fell in with this lot?"

She at least had the good grace to look abashed.

Looking at Mad-Eye, he commanded. "You will all spread out, disillusion yourselves, and silently take out all the Death Eaters you can find in a one kilometre radius. Take them by surprise. I know you won't kill them. Just transfigure them into rats after you stun them, and hand them over at the local body office. You will get the money that rat-catchers get. Meanwhile, I am going to ring up two taxis. The first will be the decoy. Kingsley, you will ensure that that taxi remains safe. Meanwhile Petunia, Vernon and Dudley will take the next taxi and drive away, muttering about stupid freaks that dared use their garbs. We will go a distance of five kilometres, before we apparate to the Burrow."

Kingsley now joined Remus as he started laughing as well. Dumbledore was right. As long as the Potter boy was around, they had some hope in this war.

"Well? What are you doing standing here? Get cracking, you bunch of sissies!" Harry shot out. Barring the two senior Aurors and Remus and Hermione, the other nine members of the rescue party scrambled to leave.

"Do you understand how much we will have to change our logistics due to this unexpected change, Potter?"

"Do you understand that this plan might have been leaked to the Death Eaters and they might be lying around to ambush us, Mad-Eye? Are you an imposter again? Where's your paranoia when it is needed?" Mad-Eye grunted and stalked off. The kid was right.

In ones and twos and threes, the Order members filled out of 4, Privet Drive, and spread around as instructed. Sure enough, within the next fifteen minutes, two taxis drove down the way, the first one stopping a little way off, and the second driving around Magnolia Crescent and then returning to 4, Privet Drive. Mad-Eye watched as all the Weasleys were whisked away by William, before returning with his bride-to-be to join him on the patrol.

Inside the House, Harry drank the Polyjuice Potion and morphed into his Uncle, while Remus impersonated Dudley and Hermione became Petunia.

"Cub? These clothes won't fit me."

"Upstairs cupboard in my room. I snuck in two sets of clothes for each of us."

"You had planned this," Hermione-Petunia accused with narrowed eyes.

"Guilty as charged, Pet," Harry-Vernon grinned.

Twenty minutes later, the family traipsed onto the curb. "Did you lock the door, love?" 'Vernon' called, enjoying calling Hermione that.

"Of course I did, Vernon!" 'Petunia' snapped.

"Just checking, love," 'Vernon' replied in a placating manner, before impulsively kissing Hermione-Petunia, who squeaked.

"H-Vernon!" she admonished. "We are out on the street! Have a sense of propriety!"

'Dudley' snickered. Remus had known about this, as Harry had confided in him as soon as Hermione had left to change.

The family clambered into the taxi and soon reached the destination. They reached the Burrow without incident. As an aside, twenty one death eaters were put down by muggle authorities, excluding the still-a-spy, Severus Snape, who assumed them to be rats. Said spy, however, suffered his master's wrath.

* * *

A few days later, Hermione cornered Harry in Grimmauld Place. Remus and Dora, who had been brought in on the secret, were still sleeping in their room. Voldemort had attacked and Ron had stayed back to help, but the other four had to escape. Harry had cast the Fidelius Charm on the property anew and had made Hermione the secret-keeper. Remus had returned from the Burrow after three days with the news that Ron was so gravely injured in the attack that his chances of joining them on the mission Dumbledore had given them were non-existent. The werewolf was sure he had seen the cub grin discreetly.

"Harry, what was it that day before your birthday?"

"What?" Harry asked innocently.

"You kissed me."

"Yes." He didn't even attempt to proffer the 'Vernon kissed Petunia' argument.

"Why?"

"I wanted to. I have wanted to do so for the past year."

"But Ginny..."

"She was good fun - and we only kept that to a few kisses, and most certainly nothing more - when I was playing at being normal." He held up a hand to stem her protests as he reasoned, "We know how it is, in the year that is divisible by three, Voldemort himself doesn't do anything. In the third year, it was an innocent Sirius and the rat, and last year it was the other Death Eaters."

Hermione couldn't contest that claim.

"And after your birthday," Harry continued, "you became an adult witch and started behaving stupidly, as is normal. While you were pining after Ron, I of course couldn't kiss you. You could have slapped me silly. That night we were playing roles, so I took the risk."

"Are you saying that I am now stupid and you aren't?"

"I said you acted stupidly last year. I have vowed to never be an adult wizard in practice. I'd rather behave like a muggle on this hunt – a muggle who knows and can perform magic. We might even win."

Hermione huffed. "Why do you think that I won't still slap you?"

Harry cocked an eyebrow at her. "You had plenty of time to do that. You haven't." He got up suddenly and gathered her to himself before staring her in the eyes. Giving her plenty of time to back off, he slowly brought her lips down to hers and kissed her deeply, his insides dancing the conga as he did something that he wanted to do ever since he broke up with Cho, really. Hermione froze for but a moment, before she kissed him back just as enthusiastically and passionately.

Finally they resurfaced when they were a bit short of breath, all thoughts of any of the redheads banished thoroughly from each mind.

"See?" Harry asked cheekily. "You still didn't even protest!"

"You were right," Hermione agreed, her lips puffy, hair askew and eyes shining. "Last year was the height of stupidity."


	5. The Lord's Locket

**The Lord's Locket**

A look at Kreacher and Regulus' retrieval of the Locket of Slytherin.

* * *

 _"_ _I require a service from you, Regulus, Heir of Black," intoned the scaly, snakelike creature that sat on the self-conjured throne in the home of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy._

 _Regulus' countenance remained rigidly subservient, but within that, he was seething. He hated this monster. He hated 'it' with everything he was, since he found out all the truths about this self-proclaimed Lord Voldemort. It was a real pain to not show that hatred. It wouldn't help achieve anything at the moment. "I am but my Lord's humble servant."_

 _The white thing sitting on the throne smiled a close-lipped smile – at least, the line that passed for its mouth curved upwards on both sides of its face._

 _"_ _I want an elf, Regulus."_

 _"_ _An elf, milord?" dared Regulus._

 _"_ _Do you dare question me?"_

 _"_ _Of course not, milord!" cried Regulus. "I was unable to hold my tongue out of puzzlement."_

 _"_ _Crucio!" cursed the white thing. Regulus writhed in agony for a few moments before Voldemort lifted the curse. "I suppose you will learn to hold your tongue henceforth, Regulus? It wouldn't do to deprive the House of Black of its Heir, would it?"_

 _Regulus only stood, stumbling slightly as he shook. He only nodded, knowing to keep silent._

 _"_ _Good. I am pleased. You are a quick learner, unlike your cousin. Do call the elf."_

 _Regulus took a few deep breaths to regain his composure. He then softly called out, "Kreacher!"_

 _The housekeeper and cook of the Black family's London home appeared before his favourite Black. "Master Regulus calls?" it croaked._

 _"_ _Indeed I do, Kreacher. Fall to your knees in obeisance to our Lord, Kreacher."_

 _The little elf turned his great bulbous eyes towards the white thing and immediately fell prostrate on the floor._

 _"_ _The Lord has a special job for you, Kreacher. I need you to obey him as you would me."_

 _"_ _Yes Master!"_

 _"_ _Good." The white thing then looked at the elf and attempted to shred its mind with Legillimency. It was apparently satisfied, for it hissed, "You shall do, elf."_

 _Kreacher looked positively gleeful at that. He and his master fell prostrate to the white thing again._

 _"_ _You are dismissed Kreacher. I shall call for you later."_

* * *

Regulus paced in his room in unease as he waited for the return of Kreacher. In the House of pureblood fanatics and equally fanatic rebels, Regulus was the one man who tried to please everyone and failed. Through his failings, though, Kreacher the house-elf had remained steadfastly by his side, even if it had been either out of a misplaced sense of loyalty or because he was the baby in the family, or some other reason entirely. Naturally, Regulus worried about Kreacher.

It was long known in the magical community that elves know when their masters are in danger. What was not known was that if the bond was strong enough – perhaps like a close emotional bond – masters knew when their elves were in trouble as well. A sudden feeling of foreboding told Regulus exactly that. Kreacher was in danger.

Unfortunately, Regulus had no means to reach Kreacher. He had no tracking charm on the elf, he couldn't ask Volde-ham for the directions to his elf, and Kreacher himself hadn't known where they would be going. Instinctively, he called for Kreacher.

The elf popped in, half-dead, an ear half-chewed off, and a hand – a dead man's rotting hand – slung across his shoulders. Volde-shite had just given Kreacher to the inferi.

"Don't make me drink it anymore!" moaned Kreacher piteously. "Please Master!"

A quick wave of Regulus' wand cleaned Kreacher and divested him of the unwanted accoutrement. Another spell at the ear healed the effects of the inferi. Crouching low near the elf, Regulus softly said, "Go rest, Kreacher. I will bring you some food. You are not to do anything till you are completely well."

It was a testament to the state of Kreacher that he didn't even protest against his master bringing him food. It probably didn't even register.

A month passed before Kreacher was well enough to resume his duties. Regulus knew to not be foolish enough as to allow Kreacher to be seen by the Malfoys or the Lestranges. Word would surely reach Volde-idiot and probably the entire House of Black and its attached Houses would go extinct.

It was yet another fortnight before Regulus confronted Kreacher.

"Kreacher!" he called.

"Yes Master?"

"Please fetch the family pensieve, please."

"Yes Master."

The pensieve was situated in front of Regulus on the table. "I want your memories of that night, Kreacher."

For the first time in Regulus' memory, Kreacher's face showed fear while dealing with his master's orders. He had not shown the same trepidation when he had scalded Sirius on Walburga's orders. Sometimes Regulus really didn't understand Kreacher and his dichotomy. Sirius hadn't cared much for the elf, but before his open rebellion, both had left each other to their own devices.

"Master, please..." Kreacher pled incompletely, his bond not allowing him to truly say what he wanted to.

"Kreacher," Regulus cut him off decisively. "The Dark Lord is not someone we should bow to. He has betrayed our world. I am going to destroy him."

"NO! You is not doings that, Master!" cried Kreacher in shock.

"You can't tell anyone this Kreacher. If you even try to hint at what I am going to do to anyone in the family, it will be clothes." Regulus never realised that his brother had not truly been disowned, for otherwise he would not have made such a proclamation.

"Master!" cried Kreacher in shock.

"Yes. I want those memories Kreacher."

And then with a baleful look at Regulus, Kreacher divested himself of the memories of that horrible night.

* * *

 _"_ _Sit, elf," the white thing commanded, kicking Kreacher into the boat._

 _Kreacher looked down into the water and saw dirty hands and dead bodies and shuddered violently. These were dead but living! He was jerked out of the thoughts when the boat bumped gently into the small island bearing the green light._

 _"_ _Come here elf," hissed the white thing. Kreacher duly obeyed, waddling over to the white thing, who handed him a gobletful of the potion. "Drink this."_

 _The white thing had nothing to retrieve from the basin that contained the potion. It just wanted to test its effects. It had kept the potion there for nearly five years, and was wondering whether the potion lost its effects over time._

 _The first swallow itself told the white thing that its worries were unfounded. The elf gasped and screamed in fear. "NO MASTER! MASTER SIRIUS! KREACHER IS BEING SORRY, MASTER! MISTRESS IS BEING FORCING KREACHER TO HURT YOU!"_

"The elf is not loyal to Regulus alone, then," _thought the Volde-thing. "It will be disposed of anyway."_

 _And so Kreacher drank under orders, dying with each swallow a little more._

 _"_ _Water," gasped Kreacher at last._

 _"_ _Drink!" ordered the white thing._

 _When at last the basin was empty, the white thing placed a precious piece of its sullied soul, and cast a self-refilling charm on the basin. Kreacher only glared hatefully at the thing as it sat in the boat and rode away. He crept towards the water for a drink and was soon pulled under by the inferi._

* * *

"Just as I had feared," muttered Regulus. "The turd has created soul anchors."

He looked at the elf that watched fearfully and spoke clearly and carefully, "Take me to that island, Kreacher."

"Master..."

"No. I am not going to make you drink it. I have a plan."

Kreacher obeyed. Master Regulus had never hurt him.

As soon as they reached the island, bypassing the need for the boat, Regulus conjured a goblet and reached out to take a swig and drink the potion himself.

"MASTER!" shouted Kreacher. "YOU ISN'T BEING DOING THIS!"

Regulus smiled at Kreacher. "Kreacher, the Dark Mark will kill me anyway for this betrayal. This is the only way in which I can redeem myself. You are going to take that locket and hide it at Grimmauld Place. Destroy it." And then attaching a straw to the basin and foregoing the goblet, he drank it all.

Having not stopped between swallows, the effects took some time to surface. Regulus used that time to Order Kreacher to go. Kreacher veered on the edge of disobeying his master when disaster struck. Regulus gasped and fell towards the water. He touched his lips to it, clutching and scratching away at his throat, when the first hand rose out of the water. The inferi were coming out!

"GO KREACHER! DESTROY THAT THING!" yelled Regulus.

"Master!" cried Kreacher in distress and then wailed out in sorrow, as Regulus was pulled under.

* * *

Kreacher stews alone in his failure, in bitterness as he hates the locket that killed his master, and which he cannot destroy and so has to protect till he finally can.


	6. Obliviate

**Obliviate**

 _"_ _I get it. You choose him."_

* * *

Hermione glared at Ron angrily. Couldn't he understand what was at stake? He was fighting against them over food? Didn't he see what Harry and she had seen? Hadn't he understood what they she and Harry had when they heard what they had all heard? Couldn't he see what she and Harry were fighting for?

In that moment, her outlook changed diametrically. _She and Harry_ were fighting against Voldemort. _She and Harry_ were trying to extrapolate and understand. Ron, she realised, was lagging behind. In that moment of absolute clarity, her anger melted into pity, and her rose-tinted glasses came off.

On the larger scale, they were fugitives, fighting against a seemingly insurmountable enemy. The Chosen One was the beacon of hope, and she, the cleverest witch of her generation, muggleborn, the symbol of defiance against everything that the enemy stood for. In their hands was a part of the soul of the most evil, if not the most powerful Dark Lord ever. Security, secrecy and good morale were not necessities – they were massive understatements to describe what they needed.

Ron, poor Ron, was left behind once more, unable to adapt to what the times and his friends needed him to be. He also was willing to abandon them when they could be tortured, killed, or worse.

On a personal level, the proud witch that was Hermione Granger, rebelled against whatever it was that the boy might once have meant to her, if ever. Here was a boy, who had never asked her out; who had spent the previous year chasing skirts; and who had claimed her like chattel and in his thoughts at least, had marked her as his territory. She had allowed herself to be swept by that chauvinism, if only because she wanted to have a normal year like any other teenage girl.

And she hated what she saw. Ron constantly questioned her commitment to what wasn't even a formal, if fledgling, relationship yet. He questioned her honour and her character. He questioned whatever relationship she had with her best friend. And frankly, not only was it none of his business, but she too was tired of it.

Coming to a sudden decision, and grim understanding, she snapped her wand at him and stunned him.

"Hermione!" protested Harry.

"No. He is surplus to requirements and is now a risk. He knows too much." She glared at him daring to oppose her on the matter.

Harry raised an eyebrow at her.

"Yes. I am sure."

Harry simply took stood by her side. "Thank you. I am sure it hurts again, but I appreciate the sentiment."

She knew what he was hinting at. "It is no bother. At least I had a lot of emotional connection with them. You will apparate him as near the Burrow as you can?"

"Of course, though it might be worth it to change how he looks...or a selective disillusionment, perhaps?"

Hermione nodded. She first tied up, and then divested the redhead of his personal effects, before reviving him.

Ron, who had been angry, was now looking at her in fear.

"I am sorry Ron. But this is how it has to be. Obliviate!"

* * *

Molly was looking at the family clock in worry as she did nearly every waking moment. There were two people whose hands were not on that clock, but she worried for them just as much she worried about the one with them who had one. They were not her blood, but they were hers, just the same.

Suddenly Ron's hand moved to travelling, from the default setting of Mortal Peril, and a couple of seconds later, pointed at home. The wards, connected to the very clock, blared at the same time. It seemed her three had returned home – or at the very least, Ron had company, fair or foul, in which case, he would need help.

Arthur, Bill (who always visited at least once a day) and she hurried out at the same time to see a man vaguely resembling Arthur's Uncle Bilius ambling through the gates. Bill stunned him. One could never be too sure these days. After a lengthy procedure, that her eldest son promised her was de rigueur at Gringotts, they ascertained that it was indeed Ron, and no, he wasn't under any foreign spell or the Imperius. He was however acting very strangely.

As they led him in, Molly saw an envelope jutting out of Ron's pocket. She took it as Bill led Ron to his room instead of the orange clad bedroom housing the ghoul. Ron was put under a sleeping spell. Something was wrong, and Molly was sure that this was a way to protect Ron. She feared what had befallen the other two.

Opening the letter at her husband's request, her fear turned to dismay and resigned understanding.

 _Dear Weasleys,_

 _We are very sorry for this intrusion. However the situation called for such._

 _As you know, we are completing the mission given to us by old Mr Sparkles, who loved the gaudiest colours ever. We have been slightly successful. Unfortunately, Ron has run into some difficulties with Harry and I. We have absolutely no resources, and Harry was in such a condition that he couldn't perform even his Patronus Spell, due to the effect of a dark object belonging to Tom Riddle. It is one of the keys to defeat him, and it tried to possess all of us. The morale is pretty down, therefore. Obviously, we had a row._

Molly gasped. Harry had taught several other students, including her children. He had a powerful Patronus. She worried about the situation they might be in, if he was that badly affected.

 _There is no way to sugar-coat it. Ron intended to abandon us. While we understand that you may not believe this, it is true. It is also not the first time, as you very well know. As it stands – and we understand that it may hurt him, and you – he has become deadweight for us. We are all at our wits' ends. That would not have been reason enough. However, he has been routinely picking fights with us over nothing, and went so far as to attempt to attack Harry. So we had to come up with this drastic solution._

 _Ron, currently, will have regressed to the level of a fourteen year old. He will have no memory of our mission, or of much of last year. He will still remember everything regarding all the defensive spells he knows, so he can defend himself. This, I believe, can be explained away as an after-effect of Spattergroit. Harry has personally side-along apparated him to the Burrow._

 _Do not attempt to overcome the spell. It is of my own creation. I alone hold the password. Mrs. Weasley, I request you to not scold him._

 _We understand if you are angry with us about it, and also because of our bluntness. However, we are at war. We truly don't have the time for such pettiness._

 _I have used a few drops of his blood to draw runes on the envelope, so that only those, whose names I have written below by the same ink, can read it. If we come out of this war alive, you shall have both our oaths that we did not use his blood for any other reason._

 _We have nothing against Ron, and we sincerely hope that eventually, we may become friends again. As for you and your family, we wish you all good luck. Stay safe. We both love you all, and I can say this for Harry – you are the closest thing to a family he has ever known. So please, please stay safe. We are fighting._

 _With all our Love and Best Wishes,_

 _Hermione and Harry._

 _Letter Access List:_

 _Arthur Septimus Weasley,_

 _Molly Muriel Weasley_

 _William Arthur Weasley_

 _Charles John Weasley_

 _Fredrick Gideon Weasley_

 _George Fabian Weasley_

 _Ginevra Molly Weasley._

Molly couldn't help the fat tears that rolled down her cheeks. "Oh Ron!" she sobbed. "What have you done?"

* * *

By MG1. Can't truly see Hermione sending her parents away, but not taking precautions when Ron abandoned them.


	7. The Master of Death

**The Master of Death**

A/N: This story arc won't leave me alone. This is intended to be Tragedy/Humour and a series of one-shots like 'Adorable Violence'. I'm posting it as a one-shot, but if people like it enough, I will expand it. There's no point in writing stories if they are unpalatable and uninteresting to start with. This won't be Harmony or Harry/anyone for that matter during the course of the story. It does break He-Ron and Hinny apart (no potions and stuff), however, and is set in the cliché post-War times when Death comes to meet him. The-op-Who-scoused.

* * *

The war was over. Lord Voldemort, the one with the Horcruxes, had been destroyed. In the process, in a final confrontation that paled to the status of a damp squib as compared to all their previous face-offs, the victor, Harry Potter, had died, come back to life by what seemed to be a technical error on the soul level, and then had gone on to retrieve the Elder Wand as its rightful owner from the thief and Death Cheater.

Now in the possession of the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone and the True Cloak of Invisibility, Harry Potter had become the Master of Death.

The Master of Death was, on the fine – well, not so fine in retrospect, given the deaths and all that had occurred during the battle – morning, still out cold, catching up on some well deserved sleep that he had missed out on during the long, lonely months out in the middle of nowhere. For a victor of so big a war, and for a person who had recently ascended to a very important, mythical, and therefore completely ignored position, he was sleeping in a thoroughly undignified position as he drooled and dozed away.

Of course, he shouldn't have abandoned vigilance. He was fates', destiny's and death's (and of whatever other entity was at the moment interested) plaything. Harry Potter was shaken out of his slumber, quite literally, by his own shivers, as the cold which had frozen his drool started pervading everything.

Fearing he was about to be the victim of a stray Dementor, Harry grabbed the Elder Wand, which was lying close to his pillow and summoning his stock memories to mind, summoned the Patronus. The stag lit the dark room and then sat down obediently on the floor, doing nothing to the entity that looked like a Dementor, caused all the cold like a Dementor, but didn't _feel_ like a Dementor. The figure was absently twirling the Resurrection Stone (hadn't he dropped it in the forest?) between its decidedly neat and un-scabbed, un-gnarled and un-rotting hands.

"So you are up," the figure said in absolute boredom.

"I am. I hope I can expect some explanation for the dramatics, and an introduction while you are at it?"

"You aren't scared that I might kill you?"

"Not particularly," replied Harry. "I've been there and done that."

"So you have, haven't you?" the figure mused, before it added in wry amusement, and with a mocking inflection, " _Master_."

"Ah...nice joke you are trying there, whoever you are. It's falling flat though."

"I would have said that you aren't the first to react that way...but I can't. You are my first Master, after all."

Harry opened his mouth to speak once, twice, thrice, before deciding he couldn't think of anything appropriate enough. So he resorted to closing his eyes and sighing. He stopped at once. That was a very Dumbledore-ish action, and at the moment he wasn't feeling charitable about the man.

"What is your objective here?" Bluntness saved time and got the matter across effectively.

"I am here to tell you about your duties."

"My duties," was the Saharan retort.

"Yes."

"Please go on."

"Thank you Master." The figure emerged from the darkness, and transformed into a human form. She walked towards Harry rather...seductively.

"Really?" remarked Harry. "Of all the women you could choose to impersonate, you choose Bellatrix Lestrange, someone I'd kill on sight?"

"My other option was Lavender," 'Death' remarked. "Or Tonks," she added. "They died in battle. I am sure you wouldn't care for either of those two calling you Master." 'Her' voice was like a whisper, assumed to ensnare Harry's senses.

"And I would prefer a Bellatrix impersonation treating me like she treated Voldemort? Stay away, damn it!" 'Death' had crept close to Harry and the Master was not amused.

"Alright!" retorted Death. "Be like that!" The form remained the same.

"Why do you have a female form?"

"The most capricious entities have always been treated as female."

There were definite signs of an impending headache. "Please tell me what I have to do..."

"...and be gone?" completed Death. "So be it. The Master of Death became a position when your ancestors tricked me. But I didn't let them get one over me completely. The Master of Death will be a person who shall straddle both realms. It was why you still lived after you came into mine. You will be the equivalent of a bidirectional Veil of Death."

"I am not letting Voldemort through!"

"You can choose, you idiot! I don't like him any more than you do!"

"And what happened to what the souls felt with the damn Stone?"

"They had no body! Honestly, can't you think?" It was said so bossily, that Harry was reminded of Hermione, instead of her torturer whose body Death had assumed. Hermione calling him 'Master'...and behaving as Death was...that was a pleasurable thought. He stamped down on it ruthlessly.

"I can't take her form. And wasn't she like a sister?" Death asked far too innocently for it to be true.

Harry chose not to dignify that with an answer. "So they will what, possess me?"

"Sort of," answered Death. "You will see them around you always, and will channel them around their near and dear ones. It is rather opportune. You can more than just console them. When they need it, and if you decide that the need is great enough, you can allow the soul of the person they need to meet to come to the fore."

Immediately images flew before Harry's eyes. Fred and George indulging in twin talk, Moony and Tonks being able to meet their son and Andromeda Tonks every so often, Colin Creevey meeting his family... It brought tears to his eyes.

"And what about those who have nobody but me on this side?" he demanded.

"I did say that you can straddle both sides, didn't I, you twit? You can crossover and not be really dead unless you wish to be either even when it may seem otherwise if you are killed or something."

"And do the people have to be strictly magical?"

"I don't discriminate upon those grounds."

For the first time since the battle, Harry smiled. This wasn't as bad as it seemed when Death spoke of duties. "I am ready."

"Are you?"

"Yes. These don't seem to be onerous duties."

"If you are sure..." Death transfigured the cloak, stone and wand into a locket, and it was fairly benign unlike the neckweight of Slytherin.

"Go on then, Master..."

Harry wore the necklace and was hard pressed to not gasp. The words, "Those who love us never truly leave us," became all the more clearer, and not just in a philosophical sense. For the Master of death it was visually as well, as he stood on the precipice between the two worlds.

Harry's outlook changed as he realised the extent to which things would now change for him. All around him, interspersed with the plane of the living, was the plane of the dead.

"Dumbledore truly didn't understand you, did he?" he asked his...slave.

"What did he ever understand, really?"

The two shared a silent snort.

And then there was one of those people he truly wanted to see. The man grinned at him and called him over. Harry smiled, but it was apologetic. He was very new to all this. His sense of duty was tingling. Yet just a few words wouldn't hurt, would they?

Harry approached the man. His feelings must have shown on his face, for the man asked a question: "Why so Sirius, Harry?"

The Master of Death groaned. Some people should have been kept where they were.

* * *

Early at breakfast the following morning, a very calm, almost happy Harry descended onto the Great Hall. Naturally he first gravitated towards the Weasleys and the Order which had gathered around in a group. They were keeping Fred's body wrapped. It was time for his duties. Harry Potter receded and Fred Weasley came to the fore. He uttered famous first words.

"Good heavens! Harry is too bloody short!"

That garnered some attention. George looked at him with a completely lot expression.

Fred/Harry chuckled. "'Lo Gred," he called out. "You look like shit."

George harrumphed as he responded automatically to the appellation. "You are shit, Forge."

"No Gred. You look like Holey Shit. Holey...get it?"

"Holey Shit..." George sat ramrod straight. "Fred?" he gasped.

"It seems so."

"Are you saying...?"

"...that I am currently possessing Harry?"Fred completed automatically. "Yes."

"This is a terrible joke..."

"...but not as bad as the Giants' Amortentia we developed three weeks ago..."

"How do you know...?" demanded George.

"As I said, it is me, Fred. I am not sure I understand it all that well."

At this point, Hermione, Ron and Ginny, as well as most of the Order that was sleeping on the tables woke up. Ginny was the first to react.

"Harry!" she squealed tearfully, and leapt onto him before kissing him passionately.

George froze for a second, as did Fred/Harry. Then the girl was pushed away rather forcibly as a truly terrorised expression took hold of the face that Fred was wearing.

"Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!" he hollered as he jumped about retching and turned decidedly green. Ginny was extremely offended, naturally. Everyone else was looking at him bewildered.

"I think, Harry, Forge, you might need to explain," George prompted to his recently un-dead twin and their silent business partner.

"It's about me becoming the Master of Death," Harry, who had come to the fore.

"Ginny kissed me," he said as he turned green and Fred came to the fore.

"I am always going to be something between dead and alive..."

"My little sister kissed me," Fred sobbed.

"And if I feel it necessary, I can channel people in the other place..."

"Ickle Gin-Gin tongue kissed me..." Fred bawled.

Ginny was not satisfied. "Is this a way to break up with me completely?" she asked testily. On one hand her brother wasn't as dead as it seemed. On the other he possessed the boy whom she had just kissed. Or so it seemed in both cases.

"No. But this is awkward..." Harry admitted.

"MY SISTER SNOGGED ME!"

George blasted Harry/Fred with an overenthusiastic 'Aguamenti' charm.


	8. The Patronus

**The Patronus**

A/N: It's just a story to get me back into things, having not written a word for months.

* * *

"Expecto Patronum..." murmured the boy to the large black cloak that exuded fear, terror and coldness beyond measure. His wand was held limply in his shaking hands as he valiantly attempted to point it at the figure. "Expecto Patronum!" he cried again.

It was all to no avail. The object of his fears overwhelmed him again, overcoming his feeble attempts at self-defence. It sucked the happiness right out of the air, making each positive and negative emotion, seem like a living thing, fighting for dominance and for stamping its presence. At that moment, it seemed like fear had stabbed happiness through its heart.

As the black-haired boy collapsed, his teacher, and unbeknownst to the boy, someone who was truly family, attacked the practice dummy, for that was what the Boggart-Dementor essentially was, and put it away for later use.

Remus Lupin rifled through his drawers, cursing himself for his paranoia regarding the chocolate stash he had stored. He moved it around twice a day at least. At the moment, it was direly needed. While the Boggart couldn't suck souls, it was nevertheless able to truly replicate all the other effects of Dementor exposure. As such, causing severe panic and heart trouble was one of them. No better remedy than a bar of chocolate to calm a person existed.

Finally he found a large enough chocolate bar. He conjured a cup and a small pipe, before melting the confection into the former. He first revived the boy, though he remained largely out of it. Conjuring a large cushion under the boy's head, Remus eased the chocolate down the boy's throat.

It was a bit before Harry could sit up.

Knowing full well what sort of answer another boy with the same face would have given him, and expecting much the same, Remus asked with obvious concern, "Are you alright?"

As expected, he got the answer, "I'm fine." Only, he got it with a dismissive scowl and a slight 'tch' sound. There had to be more than the green eyes that he inherited after all. Lily never liked to be seen as weak.

"It's remarkable how much you are like them," Remus idly commented, immediately regretting it.

"Like my parents?" the teenager asked with real interest, though it was tinged by tiredness and some broodiness. It scared Remus, the sheer amount he saw of two of the best friends he ever had in their son.

"Yes." He decided not to elaborate. The Ministry had taken away his chance to be with him, this child who was the only family he really had left. And now that he had finally met him, he never knew what to say, or what not to. "Can you tell me what the matter is? I mean, beside the fact that the spell is too difficult for your level, and as such something that I should never have asked you to think of?"

"I am trying sir. Please, let me learn it!" the boy protested in alarm.

"I am not going to stop teaching you Harry. But I must know what mistakes you think you are making to be able to do so better. I cannot share the thoughts you have at the moment you try the charm, after all."

Harry looked away with a frown. This man seemed almost concerned. "I am not good enough perhaps," he answered with a self-deprecating shrug.

"That's not true, and we both know it." Remus saw the traitor in that answer, always shying away from facing the truth when down. "Perhaps your memory isn't good enough?"

"Perhaps," the boy answered uncomfortably.

Remus frowned. He had tried being supportive and understanding yet firm, and it made the boy uncomfortable. There was nothing to be gained yet till he couldn't face whatever demon obstructed him from fighting the Dementors. He wasn't going to give up on him either. He had seen and observed enough to know that an unmotivated lout who rested on his laurels this boy wasn't.

"We will try again next week," he dismissed the boy, handing a bar of chocolate. He needed to know more before he could help Harry.

* * *

Hermione watched her best friend return from the Patronus lessons more and more morose. They were still on the outs after the Firebolt fiasco, and he hadn't even tried to hear her side. Ron was just...Ron. Still though, Harry was her best and first friend, in spite of his failings. So this row with him hurt. And the sight of his face and dimmed eyes made her feel worse still for reasons she didn't know. Not that anyone feels happy if their best friend is unhappy, but for Hermione, it was more. It felt as if she was partaking of the sadness.

"Are...are you alright?" she asked him timidly, startling him slightly.

"I'm fine," he answered mechanically.

She cocked an eyebrow at him, challenging the assertion with habitual ease. He just smiled wanly and shook his head. She gave him an unimpressed look and decided to pester him when he was again unguarded. Sometimes, he was just too stubborn.

He looked at her for a moment as if he was figuring her out. A few days ago, he would have been annoyed at her interference, but while he was no longer angry, he could see Hermione as she truly was, someone who cared for him truly. He felt ashamed. He didn't know what to say. All his life, he had apologised to people who he hated, if only to be assured of some living space and not being starved. How did one go about apologising to someone who only genuinely looked out for you, and who was right? It really isn't human nature to apologise and always want to mean it.

But this was Hermione. She always accepted him as he was. He decided to try. But first, he decided to think from her side as well. Had he not done what the Dursleys always did, never considering his side before meting out punishments for anything?

"Hermione?" he called out just as timidly.

"Yes?"

"I am sorry."

She looked up from her book. He was looking at her determined way, but it was obvious that he was working up the courage to say whatever he intended to. "What?"

"I am sorry for not listening to you about the Firebolt, and not hearing you out. You always look out for me. I am sorry, really," he added, more than a hint of a plea colouring his voice.

Her best friend was not wordy, but he was more than just a nice person all the same. She gave him a small smile, which then blossomed into a happy face as she hugged him. She especially liked the way he relaxed with his arms around her.

"Apology accepted Harry." She then gave him a stern look. "Don't make this a habit."

"I won't. I have resolved to hear everyone out before losing my temper. It might even save time and energy."

"Well, I am proud that you are learning something from it," she praised. "I can accept things this way this time." And this was also the unguarded moment. "So what happened in those Patronus sessions?"

"You are like a dog with a bone aren't you?" he asked playfully. She growled a bit and laughed. Then he sobered up. "They aren't going so well."

"Why?"

"I can't seem to get a hang of the spell, and Lupin ensures that I don't push too hard...but I need to get it."

"We'll see about it. I'll ask him about joining you."

"NO!" he responded vehemently.

She looked crestfallen as he refused.

"You already have so much to cope with. Having all electives is not normal. Even you have a breaking point."

"Oh." She considered it for a bit. "Well, that is no problem. I was having doubts about Divination anyway. I can leave it, freeing my time up."

"Hermione, please don't lose out on your education on my account. I am not..."

"I am not doing it on your account. I have been thinking about it for some time now. And besides, I doubt Divination will be useful if I ever have to face a Dementor. A Patronus will be, though."

Harry had no answer to that logic. "Are you sure?"

"I am."

He gave her a small, but very happy smile.

* * *

Hermione, Remus decided was a godsend. She encouraged Harry as much or more than he could. She was a quick student and was already getting some mist, even as Harry struggled.

"Come on Harry!" she would demand. "You can do better! A Dementor is nothing! Get it!"

Unfortunately, it had no effect whatsoever. Remus could see that Harry was somehow disappointing her, and that she could see something that he could not. He also marvelled at the fact that when angry, she looked remarkably like a teenaged Minerva.

"Why are you intent on wasting yours and Professor Lupin's time, Harry, if you refuse to fight?" she scolded. "What's the point?"

"I am!" he countered defensively. "I am just not doing well! Not all of us can be perfect like you and get it in the first try!"

Hermione knew him too well. "Liar," she branded him. "You may be trying, but I can see when you choose to stop fighting..."

Harry glared at her angrily. Then he got to his feet and fled. It was something more in character for her – not him. It also proved to her that she was right. She sighed.

"Care to tell me what is going on?" Remus asked carefully.

"Have you seen him cast? He tries well before the Dementor actually overwhelms him, and then he doesn't try at all, but rather seems to welcome it. He doesn't even try to back away."

"Isn't he fighting it?"

"In a way," she cryptically replied. "It's just not the Dementor he is fighting."

* * *

"Is there a good reason why the beast is here?" snarled Severus, as soon as he entered Dumbledore's office.

Remus ignored the jibe. "Thank you for coming Severus. As it happens, I asked for you to be called here."

"And what is it about? Has someone found out about your...ah...ailment?"

"As gleeful as that may make you, no, that is not the case. If you could abstain from your supposedly cutting wit, I will be able to come to the point, get my work done and be absent from your...presence."

"Please, gentlemen," Dumbledore wearily interrupted. "Be gentlemen."

"You expect too much Dumbledore," Remus simply replied. "Anyway, I am here because I have a request for you both. I need to help Harry and for that, I need help from you."

"Why would I?"

"You will, because you are clinging to something that while rightfully your own, is also something he has a right to have as well. Just as I do," Remus explained.

"No. I won't. That is all I have left."

"He doesn't even have that."

"It serves him right then."

Severus couldn't help but cringe at the look of disgust the beast levelled at him.

"And here I hoped that you wouldn't disappoint that one person," Remus remarked. "You really are just a Death Eater."

"Are you sure you want to go there werewolf?"

"Well, at least I wasn't willing like you were, was I?"

"Severus, Remus, please. I implore you to put your differences aside for this one time. And Remus, remember the Ministry edict."

"It doesn't mean anything to me anymore. He means more to me than anything else, and unlike some people, I am perhaps very selfish in the sense that I want the best for him."

"Well, I hold them both responsible for that absence."

"As I said, disgusting," Remus spat. He turned to Dumbledore with a glower. "Are you going to say no?"

"No. I won't. I have something more that I can do to help. You and Severus weren't the only people who could claim to care."

The withering glare that Dumbledore cast at Snape was summarily ignored.

* * *

"I said it's nothing Hermione," Harry bit out for the twelfth time as they strode towards Remus' classroom for their next session. He was trying to get away from her. She might mean well, but he didn't want to tell anyone what he saw.

"I have infinite patience. What do you see?"

Trying his best to keep calm and remind himself that Hermione only wanted to help, he replied, "It's my mum and dad okay? I just hear them dying."

"I surmised as much," said a voice behind them. It was Remus, who had come to fetch them. "You don't have happy memories much, do you?"

"Being a prisoner of the Dursleys doesn't lend itself to happy memories."

Remus had no reply for that. He cleared his throat. "Well, since you have no happy memories with them, Professor Dumbledore has agreed to my request to share the memories of their friends and colleagues and teachers."

"That's brilliant!" Harry answered gratefully.

"For that reason, I want you to come to my office. We are using a device called a pensieve. I will explain it better there. We will mix it up a bit."

And they did. It was better at first, but by the time they were midway through the session, it was back to square one with him.

"He is lying," declared Hermione. "It is not about the memory. It is all about the memory he is being shown."

"Even now?" asked a frustrated Remus.

"Especially now," she answered. When he sat down, she approached him with Remus in tow and sat down beside him. "Harry?"

"I'm getting better!" he declared in half-hearted elation.

"You were," Remus agreed. "But the Dementors still overwhelm you."

"I will get it. I am not giving up."

"It would be better if you gave up chasing the wrong thing," Hermione remarked.

"What do you mean?" he shot back, a bit startled by her comment.

"They don't really do that, do they?" she asked shrewdly.

"They don't do what?"

"Overwhelm you," she replied. "They don't overwhelm you. You let them, so that you can hear more."

"Don't be absurd. Why would I do that?"

"You know it."

Remus looked as perplexed by whatever insight Hermione had in the matter as Harry was trying to portray and was failing miserably. He instead looked ashamed and mutinous.

Hermione just hugged her best friend again, persisting even when he tried to stave her off. He gave up, eventually. She ran a hand up and down his back as she soothed, "You can't save them Harry. It's just a memory now. You can't try and save your parents."

* * *

It kind of ran away from what I was expecting it to be, but that is it. TAUNBW


	9. Leader

**LEADER**

The mother in Molly reaches out to a grieving child. Harry starts worrying about Dumbledore once he sees the hand, and decides that they need a contingency plan. Over a bowl of too hot onion soup, the course of the war is changed. Voldemort is faced with an actual adversary in the Order of the Phoenix.

The story follows canon till HBP. It will be strictly T-rated, with implied adult activities. The pairings are not important, however, to those who are bothered by Harmony, you probably will not like that part of the story. **This will not be started till next year.**

 _The original conversation between Molly and Harry is largely replaced._

* * *

 **Mothers, Fears and Friends**

As Harry sat at the table in the Burrow's kitchen, relishing the excellent (if a bit too hot) onion soup, he couldn't shake off the uneasy feeling that the evening's events left him with.

That Dumbledore hadn't told Harry about his intentions with regards Slughorn, but had instead expected unquestioning compliance once again, made him angry. But then Dumbledore was old, too old perhaps to ever change his ways. It had not bothered him as much as what had preceded that.

Dumbledore had never so much as bothered to check up on him, as he had admitted when he had told Harry about the Prophecy. Yet he had personally come over to pick him from the Dursleys. Whilst there, he had used magic, and had had Harry summon Kreacher. Then he had proceeded to use magic against the Dursleys as well, having also upbraided them. A small part of Harry had felt a thrill of guilty pleasure at that, another had simmered in resentment that it had taken Dumbledore so many years to finally realise that he had never been happy with them, and a third, cynically realist part of him recognised that Dumbledore wouldn't have done it if he had no reason.

He imagined himself in Dumbledore's place, having done what that man had done, and imagined another child in his own place. The idea that he had failed another person so horribly was indigestible to him, but he wondered what kind of a situation would force him to take such desperate actions. What had prompted Dumbledore to worry about little people like him?

A very startling idea revealed itself, when he coupled his observations with something else: the dead hand. Was it possible that, perhaps, the hand wasn't the only part of Dumbledore that was dying? Was it possible that he was setting his affairs in order?

Molly Weasley was sitting down opposite the boy she had come to think of as one o her own over the years. True, she had not had so much contact with the boy as to put herself in Lily Potter's place. But Harry had provided Ron with a steady friendship during the boy's early teenage years, and had then saved her darling daughter from certain death. Any mother, and particularly a very maternal lady like Molly, would be too hard-pressed to not care for the boy whom many pitied, many hated, many revered, but few truly knew, as her own son.

She saw the expressions flitting rapidly across Harry's face. She worried about him. The school years, a period of time that for Molly was something to fondly remember, were worse than unkind to Harry, and this last loss of Sirius could have been a loss too far. She wanted to console him, to embrace him and let him grieve as she was sure his mother would have. And that was where she was unsure as to how she should proceed. After all, she was not his mother, and Sirius was someone who was, legally, closer to Harry than she was. Yet, she couldn't ignore his present turmoil.

"Something on your mind, Harry?" she asked.

Harry looked up, startled. He gave her a weak smile and just shook his head.

Molly had dealt with her fair share of boys unwilling to speak, and though grief was not a factor in that, she decided to do what she usually did to bring them out. "Harry? You know that you can talk to me, don't you? Whatever it is about, including...well, including Sirius, you can talk to me. I am here to listen."

The mention of Sirius brought up a massive grimace of sorrow on Harry's face. He looked down towards his soup and nodded in a subdued manner. Molly couldn't help it. She sat down next to Harry and gave him a one-armed hug. It was a moment, a long one at that, before Molly found Harry breaking down. There were not many tears, but there was the anguish.

"Let it out Harry. Let it all out..." she said soothingly.

It was a full five minutes before Harry had calmed down.

"Better?" asked Molly.

Harry only blushed and looked away. "Than...Thank you Mrs. Weasley," he mumbled. "And sorry..."

"Harry. You don't have to ever apologise to anyone for being as human as any of us. Do you understand?"

She only saw him nod reluctantly. She stayed quiet as he ate more soup. There was no point pressing him and overwhelming him. He would speak when he comfortable become would. A while later Harry asked a question.

"Do you know Horace Slughorn?"

Molly couldn't help the moue of distaste that immediately adorned her face. She was rewarded with a tentative smile for that. She allowed for the change of topic, for the boy was at least talking now. "I do. I cannot honestly say that I liked that man much," she replied. "He taught us when I was in school."

He gulped, nodded and waved his spoon at her as he agreed. "He is going to return to Hogwarts. Professor Dumbledore took me along to convince him. Must have been one of those Defence Professors who resigned, though I must say, he doesn't look like much. He's got fitness issues."

"Why would Slughorn teach Defence? He is a Potions Master!"

"Has something happened to Snape?"

Molly was able to suppress the disapproval at the glee that laced Harry's tone as he asked the question. While she disapproved of them talking this way about any teacher, she knew that it wasn't just her children who gave such a response. Almost every person young enough to have learnt from Severus gave a similar response. "No. To the best of my knowledge, Snape is very much alright."

"Oh." One syllable could portray such a wealth of disappointment, really. "Well, knowing our luck, he might end up with the Defence position." He seemed so gutted by the idea that Molly decided to not voice her thoughts that that might be the exact thing that would happen. "Well, there still is the annual event during which the Defence professor is killed, sacked, memory charmed to within an inch of his life, revealed as an imposter or forced to live her life out with a massive fear of horses. I can live with that, I suppose." He sighed. "Dumbledore lied to me by omission again."

"He does do that." Harry looked up at her in surprise. She snorted and shook her head. "Really Harry, do you think we don't see that Dumbledore has far too many secrets? We have asked him, begged him to divulge more. We all forget the fact that he has kept secrets all his life, whether it is regarding his apprenticeship with Flamel and his work on alchemy, or his part in the two wars. He is too old, too rigid to change. However, he is also the person _we_ have grown up seeing as an authority figure. It's difficult for us to go against that, or to distrust him."

Most people would have cringed at the morbidity regarding the DADA Professors, but then Molly herself had gone through seven Professors, and didn't find the subject worth commenting. The two lapsed into a comfortable silence as she ladled Harry more soup while he cut himself some bread. It was normal for her. Barring the twins and Ron, she had now been in this position for every single one of her boys – and, she remembered with a pang, even for Sirius and Remus the year before. Sirius, if one put aside the twelve years in Azkaban, was stuck being twenty one, as old as Percy was now. In spite of their many quarrels, she missed the man. And she knew that Harry missed him more than anyone could guess.

She retrieved herself from her musings and focussed on the boy sitting at the table. He was still pensive and worried. It was the same thing that she had seen a little while before. If at all, her explanation about Dumbledore had only made the expression more pronounced. The worry lines were now very prominent on his face. She couldn't point to any one reason. With the war, everyone was worried.

Out of the blue, Harry suddenly had a question. "Do magicals rely on instincts, Mrs. Weasley?"

"We do, yes. Why?"

He shrugged as he chewed on his bread silently. Thank heavens, but she wouldn't have to correct the bad habit of talking and eating in Harry as she needed to with Ron. "It's...nothing."

"Harry. Don't become like Dumbledore."

"His habit of keeping secrets kills people, Mrs. Weasley, just as my habit of following my instincts does," he retorted tersely. Evidently being compared to Dumbledore was not a compliment.

"Don't be absurd. Your instincts saved Arthur. Your instincts saved Ginny. Your instincts saved the Philosopher's Stone."

"And they also killed Sirius."

"And that's where you are wrong. They weren't your _instincts_ , were they? It was just a vision You-Know-Who sent. I doubt you even heeded your instincts. You thought with the fear first, Harry," she pointed out simply. She could see he was still unconvinced. "Harry, let me tell you this. We are simple people. We think with our hearts. In your place, at your age, I doubt there would be anyone who'd react in any other way. I know I wouldn't."

Molly Weasley was not the greatest witch that ever lived, nor was she the wisest woman. But she was a mother, and that particular post has no comparisons.

"Thank you, Mrs. Weasley."

He smiled at the boy. "So tell me, what is worrying you? Is it whatever Dumbledore to you in his office?"

Harry jerked up in apprehension. Molly just patted his back. "He told us that he wanted you to keep it secret for the most part, but that if you so chose, and when you so chose, you would tell us. He asked us to support you. I do not see any reason to not do so."

"I...I am not ready yet, Mrs. Weasley. I thought about it and – and... I...it is..."

"It is still overwhelming. I understand. But that is not the only thing worrying you."

"No," admitted Harry.

"Tell me."

"I don't know how I should say it."

"Starting at the beginning always works."

"Has Dumbledore been tutoring you?"

Moy laughed lightly. "Harry, I have drawn out the stories of teenage escapades, crushes, pranks, and everything else. You have a different situation, but you're no different from the rest of my boys."

Harry couldn't help but be happy at her implication. "I don't have proof. It's just a hunch. It's what..."

"...it's what your instincts tell you. Still, try me."

Molly was not going to let that go then.

"It's about the Order."

"Harry, you shouldn't worry yourself about..." Molly started reflexively, only to stop at the look of disappointment and resignation, coupled with the wry smile on Harry's face. He said nothing immediately. Molly just clutched at her face with her hands and sighed.

"It is okay, Mrs. Weasley."

She didn't reply immediately. Instead she exhaled noisily and looked at the boy in a woebegone manner. "No. It is not okay. I asked you, Harry. I should at least listen. It is just that I don't want you to have to fight, any of you."

"I don't have much choice," he mumbled in response, but not loud enough for her to hear. "I understand, Mrs Weasley."

She smiled and then looked at him expectantly. Harry resumed eating, and then stopped as he felt her eyes on him. "What?"

"You were telling me something."

"It's about the Order," he reminded her cautiously.

"I know that it's about the Order, Harry. I don't want you to fight. That doesn't mean I won't listen."

He nodded slowly, and started slowly chewing on the bread, all the while looking at her warily. Molly cringed internally at the thought that her immediate response might have made him apprehensive. A moment later, his face relaxed. Apparently she had passed some sort of internal test.

"I think," Harry started slowly, "I think that the hand is only a part of the problems the Headmaster is facing. I think he is dying."

"WHAT?"

Harry cringed at her shout and Molly controlled herself. "I am sorry Harry. I didn't mean to shout at you, but I was shocked. No. I am terrified by the idea," she quickly pacified him. "Please explain, Harry."

So Harry haltingly told her about his (admittedly) rather vague reasons. When she frowned, he ended, "I said I have no proof!"

"No. I understand. But this is a big problem, Harry, and unfortunately, this is very much like Albus to hide his problems even if that hurts everyone. Thank you for telling me this."

"You won't tell anyone else, will you?"

"At the moment, no, I won't. However we might have to do some things as the Order collectively to find a way around that. I can't just up and go about asking people what we should do should Albus die."

"I understand."

She bowed her head and frowned at the table. Harry did say he had no proof, but even a contained but incurable curse at Albus' age was one of the things that could kill people anyway. At least they had caught this early. She looked at the boy and realised that in such a case people would look at him to do things. The Ministry already was, if the Prophet was anything to go by. Unfortunately, he was just a boy. His previous adventures notwithstanding, he was not equipped to do everything. It was time for the adults to step up. She was not very well-versed beyond managing the Headquarters. But she had decided that Harry was one of her own, so she would get him what help she could get.

"You said that Albus intends to give you lessons?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Let us see what it all is about. I will tell you this though. If what you say is true, the curse might start affecting his mind and he may say or do, or worse, insist that you do things a particular way. Don't worry. But be very cautious. Here is what we shall do. Remus said he'd come around on your birthday. I will get Kingsley and Mad-Eye to come as well. They'll be able to guide you better."

The relaxing of Harry's face was its own reward for her.

"Thank you Mrs. Weasley," he said in a heartfelt manner.

"Never mind," she replied absently.

As Harry washed down the bread with the last dregs of soup, he asked, "Mrs. Weasley? Would you mind if I write to you during the year?"

"You shouldn't need to ask, Harry. I never insisted because I didn't want to intrude." She was happy though. Harry had warmed up to her enough to accept her in even a partially maternal role in his life.

Molly sat awake till Arthur arrived. She didn't broach the subject while Harry and he interacted, but Arthur knew his wife well enough to realise that she was troubled. They would talk later.

* * *

"Molly?" asked Arthur as she lay quietly but with a frown.

"Yes?"

"You have been too quiet."

Molly remained silent for a while, and Arthur knew not to disturb her while she attempted to articulate things, for it was a rare instance when Molly was unable to do so. When she did say what was bothering her, it became amply clear that it was the very idea and not the words themselves that were proving to be problematic.

"What happens if Albus dies?" She had promised Harry that she would not put it forth as something he was worried about just yet.

"Molly?" asked Arthur weakly.

"Leave it," she said shortly. "It's just a worry."

"No. Molly, what made you ask?"

"Leave it Arthur. It's just my mind imagining horrible things."

He nodded unhappily, unable to coax any more out of her at that moment. They didn't talk about that, thereafter, but it started the wheels turning in Arthur's mind – often the greatest enemy and the greatest ally of man. Arthur's mind painted horrible scenario after scenario and forced him to ask himself if they were doing enough.

* * *

The following hours of light saw Harry attempting to speak past a bushy brown mane and deciding that it was better to shut up than have Hermione angry at him if her hair went into his mouth. And wasn't that a fairly revolting thought?

Other than their stuttering attempts at mentioning Sirius by reminding each other not to mention Sirius, with a few reproachful glares about the general insensitivity tossed in by Hermione and Harry in place of spice to negate the blandness of the 'discussion', it was a very usual welcome home. Ginny even started complaining about something in the 'I-can-talk-around-Harry' mode that she had started bearing the year before. There was the usual fight between the siblings. It seemed to revolve around a mysterious 'she', and Hermione seemed to be on the redheaded girl's side. The newly awoken boy could only stare at them in confusion as they went at it.

That was, of course, until Fleur came into the room.

 _There should be a rule,_ Harry thought as he rebooted his brain after having his cheeks kissed by the entirely too beautiful woman, _against Veela bustling into the rooms of unsuspecting people early in the morning._ At least he didn't become a drooling mess like Ron.

The short conversation that included her informing him of her impending nuptials to the eldest Weasley and Harry congratulating her was accompanied by the looks of barely constrained disapproval on the faces of Mrs. Weasley, Ginny and Hermione. It troubled him. Fleur was not that bad, once one tried to know her beyond the Veela. He couldn't understand why the three females seemed heavily perturbed by Fleur. He also couldn't reconcile himself with Ginny's oddly sharp and ... dare he say it, _bitchy ..._ comments about the woman.

"Wait just a minute, now. This may be a stupid question, but what exactly is your problem with her?" The three stopped and frowned at him.

"As I said, she is a cow. She is the exact opposite of Bill," Ginny reiterated.

"You said Bill is down-to-earth and she likes glamour. Really Ginny, I'd say you're being prejudiced. With the job he has, and the adventure it has, Bill is as close to glamour as possible in a magical job. So pull the other one. Why don't you like her?"

"She is much too young!" protested Molly.

"What difference does even a decade make a hundred years down the line?"

"I'd rather have Tonks marrying Bill."

"Does she want to? Does he want to?"

"Not you as well!" said Hermione bitterly.

"I suppose you like the way Phlegm says ''Arry,' do you?" asked Ginny scornfully.

"It is not about me or about what I like or wish for," replied Harry tersely. "If anything depended on that, then my parents and Sirius would be alive, we'd never have had a Voldemort, I'd never have a link to him, there wouldn't have been that stupid tournament, and Pettigrew would have been eaten by Mrs. Norris' predecessor in his schooldays," he hissed angrily.

That dimmed the atmosphere immediately. Harry realised that and ducked his head. "I am sorry."

"Harry," started Hermione, her eyes tearing up a bit.

"No. I am sorry." He took a deep breath, before looking at the three women with frank disapproval. "Besides you're forgetting the most important thing. You are judging her based on _your_ jealousies and insecurities," here he looked at the younger girls, "and _your_ prejudices, which influence them," he continued, looking at Molly and then again at the girls. The three women flushed.

"What I think doesn't matter. But for what it is worth, I think that you're being a bit too obtuse. She isn't marrying any of you so your opinion doesn't matter _much_ either. _Bill and Fleur probably make each other happy, and love each other._ Shouldn't that be enough? Are you saying Bill is too stupid to choose, if he can see past the Veela? You are behaving just like Dumbledore, deciding that you know best. And worse still, **you** 'd rather Tonks marry Bill, but have you **_asked_** **_her_**?"

There was a bit of an uncomfortable silence where Molly, Ginny and Hermione studiously avoided everyone's gazes while Ron gaped at his best mate. Harry too looked away, slightly ashamed. He had unloaded some of the residual anger he held towards Dumbledore on them, if it was without the histrionics and with more than just a bit of forced calmness.

"What's got into you, mate? That was more direct and calmer than you were last year," Ron blurted out. The he smirked and added, "At least you've got an emotional range larger than a teaspoon."

"I have paid for my anger, misjudgement and for the inability of others to be direct and forthcoming when it was required. People die when that happens. I'll be damned if I repeat those mistakes. I hate it when people make choices for others when they don't have the right."

Harry then chose to avoid the four gazes that followed him as he left the bed and went about his morning ablutions.

The dressing down seemed to work. Ginny and Hermione seemed to be making efforts to not antagonise Fleur behind her back and were being politer, it seemed. Molly was less vocal with her disapproval, and also toned down the passive aggression, and instead chose to observe the French witch. Fleur seemed happier for it, and gave Harry a nod and smile in thanks.

He just shrugged in response. He didn't realise it then, but he had just earned two strong supporters. And he also didn't realise that when he stated his opinion and explained it, and people had stopped to think it over, he had taken another step down a path he was too reluctant to walk down, but already had strode down before.

The Prophecy remained a secret. He also never found out Tonks' problems – not that he could have done much about that. The OWL results that arrived with Harry's captain's badge later that afternoon washed the subject away. The mood was too upbeat in the Burrow for maudlin thoughts.

To the four who'd heard the outburst (yes, even to Ron), however, the resentment against Dumbledore was very obvious. The memory stayed with them long past that day.

* * *

Harry's decision to not divulge the Prophecy played more on his mind than he'd have believed. It tormented him at night and marred his waking hours. It hounded him and nagged at him. The Weasley clock taunted him in parallel. The combined effects were shown through the changes it wrought.

He spent less free time in the Weasley Orchard playing Quidditch, and instead, bugged Bill to teach him curse-breaking and spell detection and stuff. Bill in turn directed him first to Hermione and Fleur to learn at least the basics of Rune and Arithmancy. It wasn't because he knew what he had to do, far from that. It just gave him something to do, instead of getting lost in what ifs and only ifs. It also prepared him with a list of esoteric curses that he would know only in theory till he went to Hogwarts.

Hermione was sound in the Theory, but Fleur had used it in the field before and knew which parts were practically important. Runes, Harry realised ruefully, would have been the right option. Arithmancy didn't quite lend itself to easy learning, since it held quite a few theoretical concepts, but where Hermione could explain to him the rationale and the whys and hows, Fleur provided him with the cheats to work around that academic impediment. By his birthday three weeks after he arrived at the Burrow, Harry had learnt to hide things in plain sight, plan protective schemes for very small objects and in general had developed the spatial awareness and instincts to work with advanced magic.

The two women two formed a bond as Hermione, who had judged Fleur without truly knowing her, found a kindred spirit as far as being faced by prejudices and yearning for knowledge went, while Fleur found Hermione to be a witty woman shackled by her insecurities, but nonetheless someone she could truly call a friend. It was not unusual to see the two sometimes indulging in girl-talk.

Harry was by no means an expert beginner, but he now had an insight into the working of a curse-breaker's craft. Hermione had been forced to eat her words about wizarding logic. It wasn't absent. It just was the sole prerogative of people like Bill.

* * *

"Harry?" It was Hermione.

It struck Hermione that he had no longer the wish to waste time over what Ron took for granted. It had led to a quarrel between Ron and her because she and Fleur were spending more time with Harry over books. Ron's intentions weren't bad. He wanted Harry to be free after his yearly exile with the Dursleys. He, however, hadn't realised that Harry's priorities had changed. It had taken Bill to break that fight and set Ron straight. Harry had studiously maintained a distance. It was what he did when he usually had something to hide. Harry maintained a distance when they spoke of families. That was enough for Hermione to know that something was amiss.

Harry was poring over a few books that Fleur, a very hard taskmistress, had ordered him to go through for a particular question he had been stuck on. He looked up and gave her a strained smile.

"Hello Hermione."

She smiled back and pulled up a chair and peeped into his notebook. It was one of many lying on the table with bunches of refills for ball-pens. She couldn't complain about Harry's determination to learn once he decided that he wanted to. Then again she knew that after the first task.

"How's it going?"

"I am stuck at the interlaid runes because of the ties. Once I get them separated, I'll translate the whole set. Of course I can only translate the symbols yet. You said the contextual grammar was yet to come."

"It's very good progress though."

He just shrugged uncomfortably.

"Really Harry, you know me. I am not given to charitable assessments in matters of such importance. This is something to be proud of." She received just another smile, but there was the astonishment evident in his eyes at her approval. Did her approval, even one so minor, mean that much? She shook that thought away. She was reading too much into it probably.

"I hope it is as you say," he offered.

They sat in companionable silence as he went back to his work and she peered at the notebook and the writer by turns.

"What changed, Harry?"

"Everything did, Hermione. I have to change. I will tell you, just not now. There are a few people I trust to help me. They need to know."

"You don't trust me to help you?"

Harry looked at her as if she was rather daft. "Of course I do. However you aren't the only one who can help me. And you are not the only one who I think deserves to know. I want – no, I need Ron, Ginny, Luna and especially, Neville to know why they fought by my side, and to have the chance to choose to stay away if they wish to. I need help from people who know better. Mrs. Weasley mentioned Moody, Moony and Kingsley. I need all the people together."

"Oh." She just sat there. "Harry? Is this about the Prophecy?"

This time, her best friend set down the stationery, and looked at her in right earnest. He looked scared now, scared but determined. "Yes."

"It's down to you, isn't it?"

Sometimes Harry wondered whether a person could be too clever. "Yes. Yes, it will be me or him."

"Well it's not as if we didn't know."

Of all the things that he had expected, it wasn't this. "WHAT?"

"Why is that a surprise to you? I mean, through the years you have been his single most important target. He said so both from the Diary and when he captured you in the fourth year. To my mind it only answers why he went after your family at all and to go to the extent of going past a Fidelius charm."

"You mean?"

"Honestly Harry, it was the obvious inference once we entered into a trap and the battle took place in the Hall of Prophecies."

Harry was aghast. Was it so simple, really? But if she knew all along, or at least, since that moment in the Department of Mysteries, why did she not broach this subject before?

"Him or you, as you say, means that you must come to terms with eventually having to one day take a life..."

"...or have mine taken."

"No. I believe in you. I have faith in you, Harry. You can do it. I wouldn't say your past adventures prove it, because you should never have had to go through those ordeals. But you did get through them. You can get through this. Have faith in yourself for a change."

"But people die Hermione! People die when I am convinced!" he whispered in urgent distress. "I am at fault!"

"Sirius **_was_** your fault, but only _to an extent,_ " she told him, shocking him again. She was obviously being severely objective. "It is not a mistake that someone else in your position would not have made. Sirius would have done the same. I would too, for the people I love. It was your fault that you panicked and played into You-Know-Who's hands. It was Dumbledore's fault that he wouldn't come clean with you. It was Snape's as well that he took too long to inform the Order when he knew what we were about to do. It was also Sirius' fault that he did not take the fight seriously. As you said before, it is not all about you. Learn. Learn from this Harry."

By the end of her declaration, she was cupping his face and practically boring into his eyes.

"But you were hurt! You could have died!"

"I chose to follow you Harry, knowing what we might face. I have read so much about nonverbal incantations, and I didn't realise that he would use that. That is the only thing I'd change, Harry. I would stun him. But I would follow you again and again, so long as you need me."

Hermione wondered whether she was getting through to him. The next moment she was gathered up from her standing position towards Harry as he initiated a hug, a very needy one at that, for the first time that she could remember. She felt that he was clutching to a lifeline.

"I couldn't imagine ever not needing you, Hermione. I can't imagine anything good without you!" The words were muffled by her midriff into which he spoke, but the intensity wasn't.

Unbidden, her hands went around his head as she clutched him closer to her. The boy who could scold her for her pettiness and could throw himself at new subjects with the same intensity as fighting Voldemort needed _her_ just as strongly. She stood there, threading her fingers through his hair, relishing in the feeling of being needed and needing someone as they did each other.

Sometime later, she was cupping his face again as his chin rested on her sternum. There was some uncertainty in his eyes, something she couldn't bear.

"Doesn't it disgust you?"

"That you might have to take that particular life?" she asked. "No."

"No?"

"Harry, you know that I need to rationalise everything, don't you?"

"Yes."

"I thought long and hard about this. Do you know what I realised?"

"What?"

"I realised that you won't be killing someone living."

Harry's arms loosened a bit as he leaned back with a frown. "I don't understand."

"Harry, you know how living beings are born, don't you?" she asked with a blush.

Harry blushed but nodded.

"Well, he wasn't born that way. Riddle was, but Riddle died in 1981. Now only his spirit remains, in a body that is not truly alive, but rather, is a magical construct. And even if that was not the case, I cannot imagine any victory where **_he_** does not die. And," she added for emphasis, "I have been there since the Troll, and even after Quirrel. What makes you think this might change things?"

Harry looked at her in sheer wonder. She had cut away at his guilt that had risen due to over-thinking about the future. He told her something else that was eating away at his mind.

"What was that?"

"I tried to torture Bellatrix."

Hermione was a bit torn. She was taking her time to analyse as usual. On one hand, it was an immediate reaction. Harry was no stranger now to the Unforgivables, either as the caster or as the victim. Feeling Harry start to draw away at her silence, she held on and asked, "Did it work?"

"No. I am not sure whether or not it is a good thing. I really wanted to kill her, but couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to do it." He seemed almost ashamed of it.

"She taunted you, didn't she? She made it sound as if you couldn't do it because you didn't care enough for Sirius?" Harry's face hiding in her midriff again was answer enough. "Harry, she is a mad woman. Her words do not matter. You care, I know. You care too much. That is why you can't bring yourself to truly harm or hate another." He relaxed in her arms. She caressed his head again. "And I care about you too. I care about you, I have faith in you and I will be on your side. I will do so as long as I am alive, whether that is many years from now, or at this moment."

"DON'T!" he growled. "Don't say that. No. No. Don't even think of that. If you're gone then there will be nothing. I will have nothing, nobody. No. I won't be able to survive that." He was beseeching her. As if to ensure that she was still there, he held onto her tighter, as children would hold their teddy, but with far more emotion. Her fall at the Ministry played in his mind over and over and he shook in terror.

"Harry. Harry!" Hermione couldn't get through to him now, really, and she took a drastic measure. She kissed him on his cheek, longer than would be considered normal for just a female best friend. She peered into his eyes and saw that they were clouded with fear. "I am here, Harry. I am going nowhere. I am here."

The moment was seen. For Molly, she recognised love for what it was. She had seen Arthur experience such terror during the first war. And she had experienced it over Christmas. Just like nobody but Arthur and she could calm each other, only Hermione could calm Harry. She would be lying if she felt that she never particularly wished that Hermione would choose Ron or that it didn't matter to her. But then as Harry had pointed out to her and the girls in much the same way as Bill or Charlie would have, it was not her decision. She knew what she saw. Harry's Heart was taken long before he knew to give it away.

And now, now that she knew what fate awaited him, she couldn't, as much as she wanted to disapprove of the choice of either of the two or wonder 'what if'. She could not now truly, wholly and completely wish any other way. They didn't know it yet, but there was more to them than they could see. It was more than just a simple show of affection, even if it was without any display of the true extent of their emotions or any acknowledgement of the same.

* * *

"Potter!" growled Mad-Eye, startling Harry a bit.

"What did Mrs Weasley ask you to check last year at Headquarters during the Party?"

Mad-Eye smiled a grotesque, twisted smile. "Very good, boy," he laughed. "She wanted me to ensure that the creature was a Boggart." Harry nodded. "She said you wanted to talk to us about something important?"

"Yes."

Moody nodded and stalked away.

The party was decidedly sombre with all the news filtering in. There wasn't much to celebrate in a birthday while everybody was wondering when it would be their turn to die.

"Shall we just start?"

The other five of the Ministry Six, Arthur and Molly, Bill and Fleur, Remus, Moody and Kingsley nodded and settled themselves.

"Alright, the first thing is that I need to tell you all, but especially Neville about the Prophecy."

Kingsley and Remus made to protest, but Harry shook his head. "They fought with me. On my part, they have earned the right to know. And Neville must know why he lost his parents. More importantly, I trust them." He didn't see it, but the other five sat straighter at that.

"What do you mean?" asked Neville.

"You will understand." He proceeded to relay to them everything he had learnt in Dumbledore's office that day.

"It could have been me?" asked Neville, thunderstruck.

"Yes."

Remus said nothing. He looked pensive for a while before bursting out, "This drivel killed my best friends and is now threatening you?"

"Yes."

"What do you need?"

"That is the point. I don't know. I don't know how to fight Voldemort. I don't know what I should know. I am just...me."

"Well, knowing more spells and actually being able to perform them will be useful," Ron pointed out.

"We need to know how he remained alive," Luna dreamily stated.

"And find a way to undo that," agreed Ginny.

"We?" asked Moody.

"We," Neville forcefully agreed. "If I know him, Harry asked to see us and tell us so that we could choose safety, but know why we are in danger. Well, I choose to stand by you as I am sure you'd have if it had been me in your place. And we don't even need to ask about Hermione."

"I wouldn't stop you, if you are sure," Kingsley stated in his calming, deep voice. "But the road ahead will be arduous."

"It will be for everyone," Hermione said simply. Kingsley nodded in acceptance. Everyone looked at Harry.

He took a few calming breaths. "Thank you. Thank you, all of you. Your support means more to me than you'll ever know." There were nods and smiles and a grunt in response. "This matter ties into the next thing I have to tell. Of us all, only Neville and Luna do not know about the Order."

"Potter!" shouted Moody in warning.

"Can it, Alastor," scolded Molly. She was treated to raised eyebrows and gapes.

" _You_ are supporting him?"

"My reaction when he first told me about what he will tell you all now was the same. I was wrong then and you are wrong now. What he will say is more important than anything else, and I say this while still wishing they needn't fight."

Harry nodded in thanks at Molly. "Suffice it to say that the Order is a group dedicated to fighting Voldemort. Dumbledore started it. Only adults who have passed out of Hogwarts can be members, therefore we aren't. My parents, Sirius and Neville's parents were and everyone else here is a member. That is all I know. Then again, you could find this information in newspapers. They just won't name the group."

That cut off all protests. The adults hadn't realised this.

"At the moment, the Order is practically the only resistance. A lot of it, however, depends on Dumbledore. And that is the unfortunate thing. Dumbledore is dying."

"WHAT?" It was the common question that erupted from every mouth save Molly.

"He doesn't have proof," she broke in. "But Albus has been cursed when he was off doing Merlin knows what. And that hand that looks dead? It hasn't healed. Whether that curse will kill him, we do not know, and the evidence is all just instinct, but at his age, a non-healing cure could very well kill him. We can't say when."

"He also attacked my relatives. He kept asking me to forgive me, and he was being too urgent. I don't know whether I am right, and I'd rather that I'm not, but we can't be prepared enough."

"But wouldn't he tell us?" Arthur asked uncertainly.

"Would he? When has Albus said anything directly, Weasley?" Moody asked. "Albus could be on his death bed and would say he is just feeling tired. He is too used to being the lone ranger who's the head of the Order only because he is the most powerful wizard alive and founded it." He took a swig from his hipflask and grunted. "Even if Potter is wrong, and the boy has a good head on his shoulders, so he mightn't be, we don't have a succession plan."

There was a protracted silence that was occasionally punctuated by an "Oh!" from Luna and a 'Bloody hell!' from Ron. The later opened his mouth to speak, but a glare from his mother quietened him as the younger lady was allowed to speak first.

"When the Brazilian Nifflewimpers' nest is threatened and they have babies within, they purposely take on the Ginger Eagles and allow themselves to be killed. In the meanwhile, the other of the pair escapes with the babies. Their nests, however, are connected to their magic and the trees' roots. So when the birds escape, the tree falls on the protecting bird, killing it. The Ginger Eagles think they win, because the Nifflewimper only takes up their space. The Ginger Eagles don't want to actually eat the Nifflewimpers. They just want to drive them away."

"WHAT?" Moody shouted. He was completely thrown off by this weird description.

"I think I understand," ventured Ron. "If Harry is right, Dumbledore won't tell us."

"Why?"

"Ron," Arthur reprimanded.

"No Arthur. Let him speak," Remus suggested.

"This is like chess, see? Dumbledore is right now King. He is the figurehead who doesn't fight, but if we lose him, we lose everything."

Kingsley and Mad-Eye leaned forward in interest.

"So, if Dumbledore is dying, one thing he could do is replacing himself with someone else. I would say Harry, but that'd be wrong because of that Prophecy. Harry has to fight. I mean no offence, but nobody else is big enough a figurehead to cause public panic to go down a bit."

"None taken" intoned the three senior Order members.

"So he is springing a trap on You-Know-Who. Lull him into thinking that he has won by sacrificing the rook, a deceptively important piece, but not the most important one, disguised as the last protection to the king, while keeping the other rook, knights, bishops and the queen in seemingly unplayable positions. Here Dumbledore would be the rook, and our world would be the King," he explained. Everyone nodded at the analogy. "The King would be constantly under check. To do that, he could make his death fairly public. You-Know-Who believes that he has won, while we go underground and chip away at his forces. That's what Luna was saying, I think. It depends on whether he is actually dying," he finished lamely.

Luna smiled brightly at him and nodded.

"You git," swore Bill. "If you actually used those brains, you could be as great as Dumbledore."

Ron actually blushed.

"It's just so wrong on so many levels!" seethed Hermione.

"It is. I am not saying this is correct. I am just predicting," Ron temporised. With his confidence boosted, he was able to hold his own.

"He's right lass," Moody concurred. "You should think of a career in politics, boy! You'll have the coots dancing to your tune!"

Ron seemed to go as red as his hair. HE had never been praised this much.

"It's just that Dumbledore hasn't taken into consideration Voldemort's greed. If he is provided with an inch, he will take the whole land. He's quite like Hitler that way," Harry pointed out.

"Who's Hitler?"

"A murderous monster of a man who was the muggles' Voldemort and Grindelwald rolled into one," Remus answered.

Everyone shivered at the very idea.

"Sometimes, however, when the chicks, after growing fully, return to the old nest, something bad happens. The nests are often so damaged that they exert all their magic for it and die in the process. For them their home is the most important thing."

"No! You don't mean it!" Ron shouted. He didn't realise how he fit into the role of Luna's translator, but he did.

"You know it Ronald. To the Nifflewimpers only their home is important. Whatever they need to sacrifice, they do."

Given that Ron was the only person who had somewhat made sense of whatever she said, all eyes turned to him.

"She," he started then gulped. "She thinks that Dumbledore only wants to buy Harry time till he can fight. I don't know whether she is speculating upon his plans or a possibility, but she thinks Harry might have to sacrifice everything... _everything._ "

"NO!" cried Hermione, the loudest voice among the multitude that protested.

"It might come to that," Harry replied resignedly into the quiet that followed. "I've wondered about that often."

"Well, Albus does make too many mistakes. This will be one of them. We shall find another way," Arthur forcefully countered, rejecting the idea completely.

There were grumbles and growls of agreement.

"So what do we do now?" demanded Ginny.

"We could confront Dumbledore," suggested Bill.

"You expect him to be truthful?" asked Remus with a mirthless snort.

"The way you people speak of Dumbledore, it would seem he will scuttle everything. Why not just keep a plan at the ready and use it if or when needed?" asked Neville pointing out the elusive obvious.

"The question now remains is this: what do we do at school?" asked Ginny.

"We should carry on with the DA. We can't make it an official club, but we can still keep it as a by-invitation-only study group," suggested Hermione.

"Why should we not make it official?" challenged Ginny.

"Because that would mean anyone could ask to join and we wouldn't be able to refuse. I don't want the current Slytherins in with us. I wouldn't trust them ever. If they really wanted to be seen as different, they would have made contact."

"Some are from the neutrals, lass!" Moody pointed out.

"Are they, really? They stay in the background, hiding behind Malfoy. If they were truly neutrals they would have sought to connect with both sides and chosen those who'd win."

"Study group it is!" Ron chimed in.

"We can actually do something else," started Harry. He had remained quietly attentive while the others spoke and now they listened. "We can keep our eyes open."

"What do you mean?"

"It is an open secret what Malfoy's greatest ambition is. His father has already attempted to _cleanse_ Hogwarts of muggleborns. What if he has some initiation rite?"

"Malfoy is too young Harry."

"No," Remus corrected. "It can't work both ways, Hermione. If he is too young, then so are you. That hasn't stopped them. And from what I know of him, he seems to be the sort to think of Lucius as a martyr and might have vengeful ideas."

Hermione nodded in an unconvinced and unhappy manner.

"Don't think that he is too young to kill or have killed, Hermione," Kingsley said. "Eight of my classmates were marked in our sixth year."

"So we keep an eye out?"

"Yes," agreed Kingsley. "But we need secure communications."

"And someone secure to handle the communications and store the information," agreed Harry.

"I could do it," volunteered Molly.

"No. Forgive me Molly, but you haven't learnt the mind arts. I think Mad-Eye or I would be the best."

"Is Mad-Eye good enough? I mean Occlumency zud be able to protect one from ze Imperius," pointed out Fleur.

"They first gave me a massive concussion, lass, when Crouch banished a stone at the back of my head."

"Oh."

"Why couldn't Fleur do it? She has a part time job!" suggested Ron.

"I wouldn't mind."

"We shall decide that then," Kingsley declared. Then he paused. He turned to his fellow members and with a smirk asked, "Did you realise that these six just sat on an Order meeting where we accomplished more than we usually do?"

There was light laughter from the youngsters at what they perceived to be humour, though it in fact was reality.

* * *

"Hey Bill?" called Harry.

"Come in mate," Bill greeted his unofficial apprentice.

"May I trouble you a bit?"

"You are troublesome Harry. Being polite doesn't allay that much," the eldest Weasley brother answered.

Harry glared at him half-heartedly. "Laugh it up. Actually this is about something Luna said. We don't know how Voldemort lived. It reminded me of something. You know in Gin's first year she was possessed when he wanted to leach away her life and take her body to resurrect himself?"

"WHAT?"

"You don't know?"

"Harry this is the first time I am hearing about this!"

"You don't know that Ginny was possessed by Voldemort?"

"Harry. Tell Me Everything."

So Harry told him everything. Bill became paler and paler by the minute. By the end, he had consumed a full glass of firewhiskey.

"WHY DOESN'T ANYONE TELL ME ANYTHING?" he whispered angrily.

"I didn't know that you didn't know the whole story Bill. I'd have told you otherwise."

"Good Heavens! Do you know what that thing was Harry?"

"No."

"No. I didn't expect you to know either. I won't tell you, yet, because your Occlumency capability is not up to the mark." Harry grimaced and looked away. "Hey, none of that now," Bill scolded lightly. "You need to know why you can't know, yet. 'Yet' is the operative word here. But suffice it to say that you have set me on a possibly correct trail. You have my word, Harry. I will help you defeat Voldemort, if that's the last thing I do."

"Thanks Bill. There's actually one more thing. Can you take me to Gringotts?"

"Why?"

"Well we know how Dumbledore loves to understate things, don't we? He said Sirius left me a bit of gold." He hurried on as Bill's expression turned disappointed. "No, listen. Remus has been having problems with the werewolves. If there is any way to grow the money through aggressive investments or something, and with a few donations, we could hire a Potions Master to distribute Wolfsbane. Maybe they can be hired in some manner."

"Okay? It's not that easy, you know. They can't invest in the muggle world. They just have an account with the Bank of England which they use for the monetary exchange."

"Oh. Look, I don't know these things much. I just want to level the playing field a bit, and enticing the moderate werewolves with the potion seemed logical."

"I understand. I'll see what we can do."

"Thanks."

"Say Harry, now that we are on the subject, I meant to ask you this. What do you want to do with Headquarters?"

"I don't want to live there."

"I didn't think so."

"What is going on at the moment?"

"It is closed. It will be back for the Order's use on September the first."

"Dumbledore asked me that day and I allowed him to use it. I thought you'd use it immediately."

"Yes. But we didn't want to. Not so soon anyway."

"Ah."

"So, what do you want us to do? Once we open it up, people like old Dung will clean it up."

"He was cleaning it up while Sirius was alive. I don't want that man near Grimmauld Place," Harry hissed caustically. "There's no guarantee that he mightn't have done some thieving already is there?"

"There isn't," Bill replied heavily. "You're right. When I said it was closed, I meant closed in the terms of normal, respectable people."

"Then there's not much to be salvaged."

"I don't know. Sirius might have left you something there."

"I trust your judgement Bill. If you think it is something Sirius might have left for me, keep it aside and give it to me. Otherwise, use that place. I don't know how many cursed objects might be lying there, though."

"Do you want me to take care of them?"

"Will you?"

"Happily," agreed Bill. "That place is crawling with dark stuff. At least I can have some tomb raiding practice. I have been set onto a desk job here."

"Knock yourself out then. Just be cautious and take someone along. That treacherous bit of vermin still inhabits that place."

"Kreacher," Bill muttered. "I will be careful."

Fleur came into the room at that moment and stopped and blanched upon seeing Harry. He smirked at the couple and said, "Yes Bill. Do be _careful_. Have a **_good_** night!"

Bill and Fleur just groaned. "You're too cheeky sometimes, you know that?" Bill asked rhetorically.


	10. The Sound of Music

**The Sound of Music (Start for "The Musician")**

 **Summary:** **There is power in words. But music has the power to make words fail. A picture is worth a thousand words. And music can paint a million pictures.**

In which Harry is the musician. The trigger is the song, " ** _My Love is Always Here_** " from the films. It's the song playing in the Church when Harry and Hermione visit Godric's Hollow. This is the story I (MumbaiGirl1) intend to take up after I finish **Sweet My Child** , which will go up to about 12-15 chapters, all told. I do not intend it to be a bashing story, not even in the manner of **Sweet My Child**. Also, in this story, Sirius brings him up.

* * *

 _"_ _Ah music!" he said wiping his eyes. "A magic (that is) beyond all we do here!"_ – Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

* * *

Like all fathers, James Potter was mightily proud of his son. Little Harry Potter, aged thirteen months, was the most handsome, cleverest, best, nicest baby boy there was anywhere in the world. Lily thought so too, and she was always right. But then again, how could Harry be anything but perfect. He was his ad Lily's son!

More than that, though, there was something that James knew he saw. It was something that set him apart from most other magicals with their mundane little beliefs, egos and what-nots. James had seen Harry fly that little broomstick. But he knew, as did Lily, that their baby boy was never attracted to anything as he was to the little music box that Moony had given him, for his birthday.

 _It had been on that first Christmas when they had all taken Harry, thoroughly bundled up in warm clothes, to the midnight mass on Christmas Eve. While Yule and Christmas were celebrated in the magical world, the idea of religion was very vague, to the point of being non-existent. But it was a family tradition for the Evanses and Lily wanted to carry it forward, in memory of her parents._

 _Harry had been crying a lot in discomfort due to the cold. Like all babies, in spite of being perfect, he was a snot-nosed, red-faced, wailing little thing that night. That was until they reached the Church. Harry had calmed almost as soon as he had heard the first notes of the choir. Lily had only wiped his face once, before settling down to sit with her baby in her arms, with the marauders taking seats either side of her._

 _And the four men had been moved, in spite of their natural youthful tendency to portray themselves as being unmoved by anything at all. It was a simple melody, a simple lullaby, that Lily later told him pertained to something called the Nativity._

 _But in that moment both he and Sirius had cried. Both were remembering the same woman, Dorea Potter. She had been murdered in the spring of 1977, with her heartbroken husband following soon after, and it had set the deep hatred for Death Eaters in the hearts of the two men. She was their mother, and both remembered her laughter and her motherly caress that they missed. None of the others had even thought to tease them about being grown men who cried._

 _And then James saw his son and wife. It was a defining moment for him. Real moments, or even just flashes of imagination, tend to do that. At seventeen, James had transitioned from a boy to a man. That Christmas Eve, James made another step up. Harry's birth had brought him joy. But that little moment, made him a father, truly._

 _He always thought that Lily was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. That was until he saw her with their son. If she was beautiful before, she was ethereal now. Carrying the little bundle of blankets and smiling lovingly down at it, she looked...divine. It made her complete. And it made him complete._

 _For days after that, James seemed lost in thought and had lost his exuberance as the song played over and over in his head. His brother in all ways that mattered didn't seem to be faring any better. All this while, they had been fighting out of anger. Now they would be fighting to ensure that nobody else lost their mum._

Moony had created for them all enchanted music boxes that they just had to open from one end to record, and from the opposite end to play. They had somehow managed to record that song and many more. They always listened to it when memories assailed them keenly.

And the werewolf had given Harry the same box after the baby had started getting all the boxes in the house to play his favourite songs by accidental magic.

It prompted those around him to sing the songs for the baby when they were babysitting him, for that seemed to calm him down the most. And that was when the Potters came to the realisation that their son was very different after all. It was never as pronounced as it was with Minerva, and with Lily.

Ever since Christmas, Lily had found that she wanted to once again play the violin, something her mother had tried to teach her till she was fourteen. She could play it a bit and for her son, she learnt to play his songs. Minerva used to visit them often, and the woman had a very beautiful voice. Yet, when either of the two women made even the slightest of mistakes, Harry would loudly disagree with a "NO!" Equally, when the tune was very beautifully sung or played, he would clap and giggle with glee.

Harry had a very good ear, a prodigiously good ear, at the tender age of one.

* * *

 **Halloween 1981**

"Dumbledore, I have something for him before you..." Minerva faltered as she could no more speak. She had grown quite close to the baby, and even the prospect of leaving him there was hurting her.

"Of course, my dear Professor McGonagall," Dumbledore replied sadly.

Minerva took Harry in her arms and sang that Christmas lullaby that he so loved. She then placed a small kiss on his brow, before retrieving her music box away from her companions' eyes, shrinking it and transfiguring it into a small charm on a chain that would play music to Harry whenever he needed to be soothed, and enchanted it so only he would ever see it.

"Sleep, sweet babe," she whispered.

* * *

Away in another city, a man driven to destroy the most dangerous threat to his godson, opened the box he held in a pocket, in a dark closed alleyway, and sobbed as he heard the music, a piercing reminder of all that was lost and was forever gone.


	11. Hermione is Clever

**Hermione is Clever**

A/N: This is of course, the real Hermione, who is vicious sometimes like against Marietta Edgecombe and Malfoy, and lies to teachers for Harry if he is in trouble, not the unknown person who was masquerading as Hermione Granger in the books-that-shall-not-be-named.

* * *

Hermione would be the first to admit that she had not exactly covered herself in glory that night. Then again, it was a highly emotional night. Buckbeak's execution, followed by the dog kidnapping Ron and then being confronted by Sirius Black and hearing the story of Remus Lupin's childhood would do that to any person, let alone a thirteen-year-old fearing for her friends' life.

And then along came Snape. The conversation between the three adults told her keen mind that there was something amiss. First there was Snape's claim that he had claimed Harry's cloak for his own. Then his point that he had taken Lupin's potion to his office and had come here without it – meaning that he was ready to have Lupin executed. She had read up on that. And then, he had seen them all on the map. And he had still left the potion in Lupin's office.

That meant he had foregone all safety precautions while dealing with a werewolf. And he did not care about anyone except his revenge. She lost all her respect for him then and there.

Then there was the fact that just like Pettigrew hadn't been on the list, neither had James Potter or Sirius Black. Yet here she had proof that the latter was. Was it too much of a stretch to consider the probability that Pettigrew was one too? The explanation, such as it was, made sense from a certain angle.

Then there was the fact, (as she came back to the cloak) that Snape had been standing there under the cloak, waiting for Black to take some action. From the description Lupin gave, it seemed that Harry's father and his friends, and Snape, were about as close friends as Harry and Malfoy were. So Black hurting or killing Harry, if he really did intend to do that, and then him being arrested for it would complete Snape's revenge. It certainly seemed in line with what Malfoy would do.

And then again it came to revenge. If Black's story was true, and there was a small probability that it could be, then Snape's revenge would not be complete. And Snape had revealed himself just as the two, Black and Lupin, had started to make sense. If they were innocent, then as Black and Lupin were suggesting, Snape did not want them to be, or to escape death.

As her thoughts came together to paint a rather grim picture of an innately evil person that Snape seemed to be, Harry confronted the man.

* * *

 _"_ _YOU'RE PATHETIC!" Harry yelled. "JUST BECAUSE THEY MADE A FOOL OF YOU AT SCHOOL YOU WON'T EVEN LISTEN —"_

 _"SILENCE! I WILL NOT BE SPOKEN TO LIKE THAT!" Snape shrieked, looking madder than ever. "Like father, like son, Potter! I have just saved your neck; you should be thanking me on bent knee! You would have been well served if he'd killed you! You'd have died like your father, too arrogant to believe you might be mistaken in Black — now get out of the way or I will make you. GET OUT OF THE WAY, POTTER!"_

 _Harry made up his mind in a split second. Before Snape could take even one step toward him, he had raised his wand. "Expelliarmus!" he yelled — except that his wasn't the only voice that shouted._

* * *

She had to admit. It felt oddly satisfying. But then she had to do more. With viciousness normally absent, but one that she could summon at will, she pointed her wand at Snape and incanted, "Incarcerous!" Thick metal chains burst from her wand. It was the truth about Hermione. Her magic, like that of most magicals, reacted to her emotions. But Hermione was special because her emotions were fuelled by and also most intimately associated with her thoughts and brains.

"Hermione," Harry and Ron called out, slightly astounded. She had done that to a teacher.

"Forget about Snape," she snapped, and then gave a slightly sheepish look to the boys, who were openly gaping at her. She then rounded upon the two men. "I will give you one chance to prove this. Then, I think, I am strong enough to take on an Azkaban-weakened convict..."

"Prisoner," corrected Black. "I never got a trial."

Things that already seemed fishy to Hermione now stank of a conspiracy. She ploughed on, heedless of her growing doubts about everyone and everything in authority in this world, "an Azkaban-weakened prisoner and a werewolf who is currently ignoring his pains in favour of an adrenaline rush. A werewolf, who I might add, has forgotten his potion and is therefore not safe to be around tonight, something our unwanted guest here knew and remembered and wanted to use."

The two men exchanged a glance that ended with the ragged convict looking away with something close to an apologetic expression. Lupin's eyes hardened a bit.

"Let me also remind you, that since the last two defence professors tried to hurt Harry, I decided to be a bit proactive, and I have learnt the Silver Bolt Curse. I will not think twice before using it. And you, Black, if you try to hurt Harry, you will have to go through me first. Also, there are Dementors here. I will have no qualms stunning you and placing you in their range. I daresay I can move faster and am stronger than you are right now. I am willing to give you a chance only because I cannot believe how a rat, a common rat lived four times its true life-span."

Black looked dumbfounded for a moment. Then he exchanged another glance with Lupin, who simply said, "Yes I know. I spent the year feeling as if I was teaching _Lily,_ of all people. I've heard that, it is only when Harry is in danger that Hermione Granger breaks the rules or lies to teachers!"

"Hurry!" threatened Hermione, with some urgency in her voice. The moon-rise was not far. And she didn't like the way he was teasing her.

Black laughed something like a genuine laugh. "I saw Harry flying better than James. I saw Lily's new version. I think I can die a happy man now. Anyway, Remus, summon that rat. Let's get this over with. I would prefer her to be on our side. You are brilliant, you know," he remarked as Remus didn't give the protesting Ron much of a chance. "You are brilliant, but..."

"Scary," completed Harry in an almost inaudible mutter, in spite of himself. "Yes, we know."

Ron was wearing a betrayed look. Finally Remus spoke one thing more which caused Hermione's suspicion that they might be speaking the truth after all to solidify. "Look Ron, the rat doesn't have a toe, and it is on the exact spot where the finger they found would have been."

"Ron, give them the rat," Hermione commanded in a steely voice. Ron surrendered the rat. He didn't want a punch to the face like the one she gave Malfoy.

It didn't take long for the two men to force Pettigrew into his human form and get him to confess. Hermione did ask how Sirius escaped though. If they put Pettigrew in a cell like they did him, they would have to ensure that that avenue was closed. The answer about the emaciated dog was blindingly obvious. She also realised one other thing. For Sirius Black, time had stopped on that Halloween night all those years ago. His soul obsession was keeping Harry safe from Pettigrew, consequences be damned. She believed him. In the only way he was able to show it through his addled brain, Sirius Black loved Harry unconditionally, and that was enough for Hermione.

"I believe you," she declared at last. She was a slight bit astonished to see Harry carefully observing her. And his next statement almost shocked her out of her wits.

"You have convinced Hermione. That's enough for me."

"NO!" cried Pettigrew, as he lunged towards Harry, though he was already on his knees. He was caught deftly by Sirius and Remus and dragged back.

"You deserve to die, Peter," Remus informed him conversationally. "Together Padfoot?" he asked.

"As always, old chap," Sirius replied, more than a hint of madness glinting in his eyes.

"I am your friend!" the rat protested. "You wouldn't do this!"

"I just promised you I would," reminded Remus, just as simply as he would explain a concept in his class.

* * *

 _He scrambled around to Ron. "Ron . . . haven't I been a good friend . . . a good pet? You won't let them kill me, Ron, will you . . . you're on my side, aren't you?"_

 _But Ron was staring at Pettigrew with the utmost revulsion. "I let you sleep in my bed!" he said._

 _"_ _Kind boy . . . kind master . . ." Pettigrew crawled toward Ron, "you won't let them do it. . . . I was your rat. . . . I was a good pet. . . ." "If you made a better rat than a human, it's not much to boast about, Peter," said Black harshly._

 _Ron, going still paler with pain, wrenched his broken leg out of Pettigrew's reach. Pettigrew turned on his knees, staggered forward, and seized the hem of Hermione's robes. "Sweet girl . . . clever girl . . . you — you won't let them. . . . Help me. . . ."_

* * *

" ** _I_** wouldn't let them? I would ask them to destroy you, you wretch," she spat. "Doesn't it gall you to ask a 'mudblood' for help, you filthy Death Eater scum?"

"Lily," started Sirius, "we will take care of this scum". It honestly slipped out from his mouth and he didn't even realise it. The temper was a perfect match, so he would be forgiven by most.

Pettigrew then invoked James' memory as he beseeched Harry for mercy, prompting more vitriol and violence from Sirius. It caused the traitor to blurt out his reason for his treachery – fear and the hope of being spared. Unfortunately, he had not counted on his friends being out for revenge, and would wish to kill him instead.

"NO!" cried Harry, ever the foolishly noble one, except this time he wasn't. "You can't kill him, Mr. Black! You can't!"

"Harry, he is the reason..."

"Yes. He is. He is also your best chance at freedom. I want that more than I want him dead immediately."

The statement sobered Remus and Sirius. Pettigrew nearly slobbered on Harry's robes as he thanked the boy. Harry lashed out with a violent kick to Peter's jewels. "I didn't say I don't want you dead. Mr. Black needs to be free, and you will get him that freedom. Let everyone know what you are, and let everyone know he is innocent. They gave you an Order of Merlin, didn't they? Well, the truth shall set him free, and it will destroy your image of a martyr and then; then you get to die. I just don't want you dead, I want you destroyed. I am not so good as to spare you."

Sirius' life was officially complete. That was James speaking, tempered by Lily's sense of justice.

Harry on the other hand was very pleased to see that Hermione was pleased with this decision.

Hermione was, also, on the other hand, thinking a few steps ahead. "Professor Lupin?" she called.

"Yes Hermione?"

"I think you should go and lock yourself in. It is nearing moon-rise."

Remus checked the time and almost froze. "Of course," he murmured, and then nodded to everyone amiably, spat at Pettigrew and hurried away.

Moments later Sirius said, "He is secure. He sent me a message by a nifty spell we invented."

"Good. Now, Mr. Black, I want you to knock him out, or make it so that he can't transform, or even if he does, he can't run away. Just keep him alive."

Sirius considered the suggestions and realised that the girl was right. But then he was Sirius. He cut Peter's hands and feet off and then quickly cauterised the stumps. "That works for you?"

"I had imagined something less morbid."

Sirius just shrugged and went about to help Ron. An apology and a strong medical spell ("Ferrula!") and Ron's broken leg was at least able to limp by. "You help him, will you? I will levitate my _old friend_."

"What about Snape?"

"Unchain him and keep him by the tree," Hermione decided. "He isn't any loss if the Dementors find him."

"Why?"

She explained her theory about Snape wanting Sirius to hurt Harry, which made both angry. And then she added, "He saw us all on the map, didn't he? And we now know that you didn't want to hurt Harry, quite to the contrary, and also that he had to be able to see Pettigrew also. In fact, it was only when you had spoken enough about those very strangely curious coincidences that together made sense only if Pettigrew was alive - and some of the points you were making were very convincing, I must say - that he made himself known. So why was he _protecting_ him? That means he knew all along and was a traitor also."

"Oh, he is also a Death Eater," Sirius told them.

"How did he get away then?"

"They say Dumbledore vouched for him."

"And yet you weren't even given a trial?" she asked with a slight scowl, which he returned as he answered with a quiet "no."

"All the more reason then, isn't it?" she asked sweetly. Ron almost whimpered in fear as he heard that. Hermione had just turned from scary to downright terrifying. He wasn't ever going to do anything that caused her to look at him for more than a few minutes at a stretch. He would let Harry handle her. He was going to preserve his life and sanity and stay the bloody hell away.

* * *

As it happened, Peter was turned over to the authorities. Sirius was exonerated – not pardoned. That implied that he had committed a crime which he was pardoned for, Hermione had argued with the Minister. So Sirius was exonerated. Harry did apologise to Hermione for being an arse to her. Sirius bought her a new library, which made him her favourite magical person. Trelawney's new prophecy did fail. Voldemort did return a few years later, but with Sirius ensuring that Harry was better equipped, he did not gain a foothold and was soon defeated in a very short war which ended with a trigger-happy Remus blowing Voldemort's brains out. Sirius also taught Harry the importance of a person like Hermione and how to keep her happy, lessons that Harry happily internalised.

Oh, and some Dementors did snack on Snape that night...and promptly died due to fatal indigestion.

* * *

Those who have read the stories here know that almost all of us hate Snape. This entire scene is the one where I started hating Snape with unbridled passion. Even Voldemort is better than the creepy, sadistic b*$t*rd. It is very difficult to not cut him down immediately in **_The Great Manipulator_** and I had to reject one chapter where I used Harry's new...skills to do so. It had to go somewhere. Obviously excerpts are from the book and I don't own that part or the Harry Potter and associated known trademarked things.


	12. Ties of Blood

**Ties of Blood**

Tom Riddle was a very ambitious boy. He also was one of those few people, who, if they held a grudge, were actually able to do something about it. And he was also among the people, those that are fewer still in number, who, when they avenge whatever wrong was done to them, never regret the final manifestation of the vengeance.

So terrorising two kids, who told him that his they would complain about him to a brutal older boy about his bullying, was easy. He remorselessly put aside his nature for a few months biding his time and then feeling the power to lock them into a cave he knew had the same sort of power he did. Using the mysterious death of another competitor's pet rabbit – a rabbit that that very night had been smuggled into the room of the competitor (which was locked from inside) from the hutches – to cement his place as the undisputed king of the little kingdom that was Wool's Orphanage did not make Tom feel anything but empowered.

It did get the children to pay him a tithe of sorts. And when he demanded objects from them, they chose to yield, under the unspoken threat of death. It was with a sigh of relief that they bade him goodbye when he went to Hogwarts, though they still had to bear him for at least two months each year.

On his part, he truly did not want to be parted from his power, for that was what going to the muggle world did to him. It put him in the most horrible position of being powerless, and having to retrain the little monkeys that he had trained during his previous years there. He had decided though, that, he would never let himself be put into a position where he had to beg ever again. So he started observing what people dearly wanted around him.

People wanted to live.

People wanted money.

People wanted power.

People desired other people carnally.

People wanted to protect the lives of their loved ones, if they loved someone more than they loved themselves.

So Tom decided to never be in a place where he had to beg for life or money. He would be power. And he never truly had any loved ones, so the last one never applied. His Slytherin ancestry, and the resulting gift of Parsel, ensured that he achieved a powerful status. And with the banner of hating muggles and mudbloods, he got, through what the stupid idiots thought was 'charisma', the pureblood families to pledge their fortunes. He charmed many women through a carefully projected facade of love, and cheated them out of their lives. He took care to never sire a bastard, but by his count, he had taken care of all...mistakes.

But for the first need – that of everlasting life he had to find a kind of magic that had been untouched by all who knew of it since Herpo the Foul. He split his soul. And then, knowing that a single one would have and be no insurance, he created more. As his soul split apart, so did his mind. His appearance remained the same but the part that made him Tom Riddle, truly, waned.

Thomas Marvolo Riddle was a clever megalomaniac, a man of many gifts and many more means. He had, however, one fatal flaw. He was hasty. And in his haste, he never learnt to read the fine print. And he had too much confidence in his infallibility.

* * *

Amidst all this, Tom was still able to have friends. Trusted friends, who would do anything for him at but a word. He had always had them. And it was not just his charisma that won him them. They knew that he would do so too. And yet few knew that about him. Voldemort used it to his advantage.

* * *

Halloween 1981

As the spirit of Tom Riddle floated away, having been defeated by the sacrifice of a mother, he put all his mental acuity towards one objective – finding out the reason for his failure. He had done his preparations well. He had done the rituals for the Horcruxes before. He had done everything correctly. Yet he had been disembodied. Why? How?

He floated around the British Isles for a while, collecting information from people possessed to approach Necromancers, before killing both the possessed and the informers. Yet he found nothing new. He found nothing that'd tell him why it had all gone wrong.

At last, weakened and drained of his magic, he had to beat a hasty retreat into the forests of Albania where he had last known peace of a different kind – a peace that, then, in the company of a lost English girl, probably memory charmed, he never found again, and one that had scared him.

There he remained for ten years.

* * *

June 1992

And there, he had failed once again to kill the Potter brat. Why was he failing? Why? Where was he going wrong?

It had to be some sort of blood protection, he decided, since that was one of the avenues he had not explored. That was the sort of out of the way thing that the mudblood would have thought of. He quashed any thought of her. It made him feel different whenever he thought of her, somehow, in spite of her being the only woman who ever stood up to him and lived and nearly killed him. Blood magic was what he was thinking of, and that was what he would pursue.

She represented a place he never thought he would visit even in the darkest recesses of his mind.

* * *

Tom possessed people and tried everything to find out why he had failed. He didn't find the answer, for he was looking in the wrong treatises. He did find a way to get around it, though. It was actually just a resurrection ritual that needed the blood and body of a young powerful magical person. Well, he would steal both the blood protection and the life of the Potter boy.

All the same, the idea that there was something truly momentous that happened that night never left Tom. He was determined to get to the root of the matter.

* * *

24th June 1995

"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will revive your foe," chanted Peter Pettigrew, as he stole Harry's blood for the ritual.

Harry was shaking in terror as he saw the bastard complete the ritual. This was it. This was the end. He was supposed to go up against the resurrected Dark Lord whom his mother had defeated. There was no chance, none at all. That moment of terror was soon replaced by a surge of love for his parents – the people who truly loved him. He would go back to them. He would miss his friends and Sirius and Remus, but he had his true family waiting on the other side.

So he stopped panicking and stopped his struggles as he resigned himself – not sadly at all – to what was sure to come.

And then, the potion flashed, and a silhouette of a tall man started rising from it. Voldemort was back.

But Harry, Peter and Voldemort were all surprised to see that it was not the scaly creature attached to Quirrel's head that rose out of the cauldron – not completely anyway.

Half of Voldemort was, well, Voldemort. The other half of him, though, was human. It was very human.

"What is this?" asked the creature of everyone. "What has happened? Wormtail," it furiously shouted. "You botched the ritual. Whose blood is it?"

"It is Harry Potter, milord," Wormtail snivelled around his sobs for his cut-off hand. "You can kill him now..."

Whatever it was that Wormtail was about to suggest never got through his mouth. At the word 'kill', both parts of Voldemort had surged forward to grip the rat by his throat, nearly strangling him. "What did you say?" Riddle coldly hissed. "Did you by any chance suggest that I should kill Harry?" The way it was said made it obvious that the required answer was 'no'.

Harry would never admit it, but for the first time, he found himself agreeing with Wormtail – Voldemort had gone insane. More than he was before.

The next moment he dropped Wormtail. "What is happening to me?"

This question was more sibilant than the previous anger. It told Harry, in his heightened state of perception as death closed upon him, that, somehow, Voldemort had become two people.

Thoroughly confused, he abandoned the speech he had reserved for the boy, and set about calling his Death Eaters. He tortured them, more to hide the confusion than anything else. All he recognised was that Voldemort, who had Horcruxes, was now sharing consciousness with Tom Riddle who didn't, but had planned to do so.

"And finally, now that I have taken your blood, Harry Potter, I can touch you without fear of retribution," he declared. The sooner he got rid of the boy, the sooner he would learn what was happening.

He approached the bound boy, and a part of him rebelled at the very idea of the boy being in distress. Voldemort could not understand that. He pushed the thoughts away as he surged ahead. The man raised a bony white finger to touch Harry's scar and did do it dramatically.

Then he stopped as he heard Harry's screams. The different part of him couldn't bear it. This time both hands were raised – Harry was sure that this action was meant to strangle him. Instead, Voldemort _caressed_ Harry's head and made weird shushing and soothing sounds. One hand wiped his brow, over the scar, and then, all of a sudden, Harry felt a tremendous lightness, as something was drawn out and merged with Voldemort, making him more human than he was just after the ritual.

"What magic is this? How could you be the one who saved my soul, or at least a piece of it? How?" he demanded.

Irritated by being stonewalled everywhere, he tore through the boy's mind to know more.

"You destroyed it!" Voldemort shrieked. And then he calmed down like a flipped switch. "I am proud of you. You are strong. Stay strong Harry." Then the switch flipped again. "What am I saying? What is happening? Who are you?"

"Who are you?" Harry finally retorted. "Why are you like Voldemort and yet aren't him, not truly?"

"Milord?" ventured Lucius Malfoy, trying to make sense of this strange reunion, and was struck by the green light of death for his trouble. Voldemort wasn't sure whether he had killed Malfoy for losing his treasure, or for hurting Harry. Why would that matter?

Tom moved away in a daze. He felt for his magic. It was strong – stronger than he had truly ever felt, and yet he, Lord Voldemort, felt weakened in a way. So that wasn't the problem, yet there was a problem.

"LEAVE!" he ordered. "If word spreads of my resurrection, I shall know, and I shall destroy every last one of you. You are mine. Your marks shall never set you free," he warned as he simply cauterised Wormtail's wrist and conjured a common iron prosthetic in its place. "Not even if you cut your hands." Once they were gone, he ordered his aide, "Fetch my treatises."

Peter, who had been thanking his master till then, cast Harry a malevolent grin and scampered away. Tom seemed to have seen that, for he sent the Cruciatus at Peter, deciding that it was only to hurry the man up.

Voldemort/Tom paced some more, and in the truly bewildered state where he couldn't decide whether or not to be afraid, Harry thought that he looked more like the dancers that donned two different sets of clothes and make-up to make themselves seem to be two different people. All the same, the boy was still tied up. Finally, Wormtail returned with the 'treatises'. Determined as Voldemort was to kill Potter, he sat down on a conjured chair and table next to him. The human part of him, though, smiled at Harry. More than scaring him, it actually freaked Harry out.

This continued for quite some time, till finally, boredom overrode Harry's fear and he started peaking into the books.

"Finding something interesting, are we?"

"You have kept me tied. You are not killing me. You are not releasing me. I am bored. You need to rework your methods if this is how you terrify people."

Voldemort sneered, but "Human" as Harry called him, considering that he had met Tom Riddle and he was not even polite, forget considerate, nodded and actually apologised for the thoughtlessness. "Your hands must be hurting," he said as he cast a healing spell, which Harry was sure was the Killing Curse, at the wrists. "I am sorry that I had not thought beyond this point, the resurrection that is. Perhaps you could read the book with me."

He conjured another chair for Harry to sit.

"Well, what the hell. I am pretty fucked up anyway," Harry mused, only for Human to reprimand him for his language and be shocked at that.

Deciding to keep that matter aside, they sat and read.

Finally, Harry did find out the problem.

"Um...did you read the warning?"

"What warning?" snapped Voldemort, his red eye flashing at the boy.

"Well, this one," Harry replied, pointing at the page. "This asterisk leads to a warning."

"So it does," Human mused. He cast a magnifying spell on the words. It shocked them both.

It read:

" ** _The sacrifice used in the Horcrux ritual should NEVER, EVER be a blood relative. Not only does that have the definite risk of death, it may also split the caster into distinct personalities. This has been known to de-soul the caster, and sometimes, the sacrifice becomes a Horcrux as well, and, in more than six of the nine recorded instances, the caster has been disembodied. Also, if a blood sacrifice of protection occurs, then the protector's mindset is imprinted upon at least one of the personalities. There have been unsubstantiated rumours of the protective sacrifice being related to both the ritual sacrifice and the Horcrux maker. At such times, using the Sirlparl's ritual to revivify the Horcrux maker may lead to unforeseen circumstances, according to theorists, including physical manifestations of the split personality.*_** ** _"_**

"This means..." mumbled a shocked Harry. "This means...you are related, **_by blood_** , to both me and mum?"

"It would seem so..." Voldemort slowly agreed, quite disturbed by this new information. At least one of his bastards had lived. It meant the mudblood was no mudblood after all, but his own progeny!

Even as that thought flashed through his mind, he could feel death. He could feel himself diminishing, even as the human part of him grew. His last thought was that this was some truly unknown terrifying power.

Harry screamed in shock as the body of the man sitting beside him actually **_bubbled._** It continued for a few minutes, before it stopped. What remained was Human only.

"What...?"

The Human panted heavily as he retched and heaved. It was a further few minutes before he felt up to resuming his position. When he did, his eyes went back to the warning. Only then did he see the nested warning as denoted by the "*+". He read that too before laughing, a seemingly light, happy laugh.

"See this, Harry. We missed another of the warnings."

" ** _DO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THE RELATIONSHIP BY BLOOD. YOU SHALL LOSE YOUR AMBITIONS AND YOUR NEW SELF!"_**

"What the bloody hell...?"

Human only paused for a moment to chastise Harry about his language as he kept laughing, before a truly stricken look came upon his face.

"Lily..." he muttered. "Lily...she was beautiful. Such an adorable little one she was. Then I killed her mother...or he did. Or we did. I am not sure anymore... We had to give her away. He...we were killing our own...had to keep her safe..."

Human was inarticulate. What Harry could gather was as much as he could from Mr. Crouch Senior. And that wasn't much.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you understand, my boy? Lily, she was my daughter. I...he...killed her... We killed her..."

"No." Harry kept repeating the word in shocked denial.

"It is true, Harry. I am your grandfather!"

* * *

A/N: Before I get angry reviews: Harry Potter and the basic idea also are not mine. The execution and the words are. I recently read a story (I won't name it) where Voldemort is Harry's real grandfather. It had an Evil-Dumbledore-Good-Voldemort theme. Dumbledore knows and hides the relation because Tom Riddle is the only true challenger to his rule over the magical world, and Harry is Voldemort's true heir. D manipulates everyone in very strangely specific ways. (I detest Dumbledore bashing because, honestly, if people fall for it, they deserve it. Obedience is a choice and they choose to obey.) **This is not a response** ; it just happened.


	13. Did you miss me, brother dear?

**Did you miss me, Brother Dear?**

She had tried to stop them, she really did. It was wrong what they were doing, what they were thinking. They had just too many Wrackspurts. And she was angry with them. They never believed her. Mother did. She always did. But then the Lakeladies wanted friends and they called her and she had to go. One of them did listen too, sometimes. He loved it when she laughed when the dribbletubs used to tickle her and she could be free from the Black Heliopath that always lived with her, if only for a little while. He was her best friend after mother had to go.

But he did not like them. He never liked the other much, but he especially didn't like that new one. She didn't either. He looked at her weirdly, like he wanted her Black Heliopath for himself, for some use that only he knew. She would have given him her Heliopath happily, really, but she knew that the Heliopath would never leave her. So he wanted her too. And the little girl never hated anyone before, but she hated him. He was as bad as they came, this new one. But the other never listened, even though she and her best friend tried to tell him. They had to listen to him and his – their – Wrackspurts talking. It was wrong.

But then finally he understood. They had been fighting for sometime – a little quarrel here, a little fight there, as the other lost his Wrackspurts, while the new one gained more. And they were mutating. They frightened her.

And then came the day. Then came the day when the other lost his Wrackspurts suddenly as he realised what was happening. And the new one gained more till they turned and mutated again. Now they would never leave, for they would be as bad as he. But now he tried to take her away. She wouldn't! She wouldn't! She wouldn't! She simply wouldn't go with him! NO!

And her best friend and the other agreed with her. They were still hers after all, however many Wrackspurts they may have gained and lost.

But then they started to fight. She didn't want that. It was wrong. They would harm everyone.

And the Black Heliopath was happy. It was very happy. It loved fights. It was even more vicious than the new one sometimes. It tried to break free. She tried to stop it. Nobody knew it, but then there were two fights in the house. And she lost both. The Black Heliopath broke free. And then there were lights, so many, many lights and she didn't know what to do. She was scared and so she screamed. The new one laughed while the other two shouted. And then there were more lights and suddenly the lights touched her. The Black Heliopath got angry.

And then she knew no more.

At least, she had her Snorkacks. She was still angry though.

* * *

When mummy died, Luna decided that she really liked the blonde hair. It was better than having auburn hair. Auburn was the colour of fire, sometimes, and daddy had told her about Heliopath, which were mean fire spirits that destroyed everything around them. She had not believed daddy and mummy because sometimes the Wrackspurts and Nargles liked to hide from her. It made her feel as if they didn't like her, and wanted her to stay away from her daddy and mummy and get angry because they could see them and she couldn't.

She used to eat pudding then, sometimes with billywig sauce. Then she could always see them. But it was expensive. There were very few billywigs in England. She felt bad about killing the few that were.

Still, she decided, the Wrackspurts were mean. They didn't show themselves until mummy died. She would rather have mummy back.

* * *

Two years passed as daddy told her about more creatures, taught her to dance and showed her how to fish for gulping plimpies. But he was always scared of Heliopaths and she personally felt that the black ones would be the worst of them.

And then she went to Hogwarts.

She actually squealed once she saw the Snorkacks there. There were many Wrackspurts, Nargles, and there were bound to be many freshwater plimpies in the lake. She just couldn't wait to explore.

And then there was that feast. The other was there.

Luna whimpered. What was happening? Why was he here? Did that mean the new one was there too? And where was her best friend? Why did he not ever see her again? Why did even the other not see her again? He looked different, but he was still hers! He never came.

She looked at the other. He looked stupid as always, looking as he did and dressed as he was. He used to think that by doing such things he could make her laugh. That never happened. He just looked stupid, and then got angry when she didn't find it funny, because he didn't like failing. He never liked knowing he couldn't do something.

He was also angry about something. The last time she saw him angry, she had forgotten everything. So she just looked at the table for something to eat, the special something that would calm her down. Now she got angry again. The people just didn't know to keep pudding! She was hungry and the other had not yet started the feast.

She whimpered again and her hands felt cold. She had no gloves – again. Daddy always said that little girls should were gloves and socks and she insisted she wasn't little and wouldn't were them, but he was always right. Her hands and feet always felt cold. So she put them inside her socks.

She turned angrily towards the table and roamed up and down the table to try and find the elusive food. She had to keep rubbing her hands of course – she couldn't walk with her hands in her socks.

Already people were laughing at her. Already, she had been nicknamed Loony. It made her angry. At least there was no Black Heliopath to use her anger. She looked up to the table where the other returned from wherever he had gone.

Finally, there would be the food. Good.

* * *

Dumbledore shook the anger from his face. The foolish boys had not even realised what they had risked. Was a little fun worth breaking the Statute of Secrecy? Was it worth their lives? He looked at the students assembled and arranged his face into a welcoming smile.

"I am sure that you are all afraid that you will have to fill your ears with an old man's waffle before you fill your stomachs with scrumptious food, but I assure you that won't be so." He paused before he declared, "Nitwit, Blubber, Oddment, Tweak!"

That was about all that Luna could bear. She stood up to protest, but then sat down again when everyone started laughing at her again. What she wouldn't do to correct the stupid man!

* * *

"Professor Flitwick," Luna called out as the man left after his first talk with the new first-years.

"Yes, Miss Lovegood?"

"I need to talk to the Headmaster urgently sir."

"Is there any matter, Miss Lovegood? I assure you I can help you as much as he can, and it is within the remit of my duties."

"I cannot tell you sir. It has to be the Headmaster."

Filius Flitwick looked unsure for several long moments. Then he shrugged. "I shall accompany you to the Headmaster's office. It is my duty as your Head of House."

"You are not my Head of House, sir," Luna serenely replied. "He is."

Filius ignored the tittering as the word "Loony" was bandied about. Whatever the matter was with the girl, it would be understood and then she could be helped. But once it was, he would stamp out the word Loony. He remembered his own days as Shorty, after all.

He led her to the stone Griffin that protected the Headmaster's chambers and gave the passwords. Luna frowned. Filius noticed but chose to remain silent. Everything was odd. Well that was not as odd as when they reached inside and she glared angrily at the Headmaster.

"You!" she screeched. Her voice was dreamy and of an otherworldly quality even when she screeched.

"Miss Lovegood!" admonished Flitwick.

"I am Albus Dumbledore, yes."

"You are also a pompous buffoon who still manages to mangle the names of my Snorkacks! They are Nit, Blue, Teak and Oddhorn, and not Nitwit, Blubber, Oddment and Tweak! And you still haven't given me pudding! I want it!"

She proceeded to sit on the Headmaster's table, glaring at him with her arms and legs crossed. Then she remembered something. She tugged on Albus' beard and ordered, "Give me gloves. I forgot them again. Daddy said I should wear them, but I only have socks."

Filius was unsure what it all was about, but he was unprepared for Albus to turn white in shock and crash into his chair. Then he did something that he had never seen Albus do.

"You!" he cried, even as his voice shook. "You came back...you..." was about all he could say, before he drew the little girl into a hug.

"Albus..." Filius prodded, since this was rather inappropriate, he felt.

Both the little girl and Albus ignored him as the latter cried in right earnest and joy, as Luna smiled and asked, "Did you miss me, brother dear?"

* * *

I am pretty sure everyone must have realised that this is a reincarnation story (Luna is Arianna). Use it. Read it, don't read it. It hounded me. I might expand it myself – MG1.


	14. Magic and the Order of the White Lotus

**Magic and the Order of the White Lotus**

It was a pure white that Harry woke up to. That was subject to interpretation of course, given that he had just been murdered, but then he supposed if there was cognisance of his surroundings, then his consciousness was here with him. That had to count for something. Then he realised that he was naked. That, even in the slightly scary loneliness that pervaded this place, was embarrassing. He wished he had some clothes, and just as he did, almost as if he were in some kind of Room of Requirement, there appeared a bundle of them for him.

The only problem was that they were weird. They looked more like robes, but something he could imagine the Orientals wearing. Still, something was better than nothing, he supposed.

Then two different sounds – or three – roused him from his contemplation of his surroundings. One was a thumping and whimpering mixed together. The other was a pair of footsteps. And the third was an odd flute-y wind instrument that he could swear he had never, ever heard before. It was soothing though, and felt achingly familiar. He just couldn't place it, for the life – ah, that was an unfortunate turn of phrase. He wished the mist would clear up, so he could at least know what was going on.

As if on command, the mist cleared up.

 _Harry turned slowly on the spot and his surroundings seemed to invent themselves before his eyes._ It was a wide open space, yet cosy, with the unmistakable ambience and furnishing of the Gryffindor common room. _It was quite empty. He was the only person there, except for –_

 _He recoiled. He had spotted the thing that was making the noises. It had the form of a small, naked child, curled on the ground, its skin raw and rough, flayed-looking, and it lay shuddering under a seat where it had been left, unwanted, stuffed out of sight, struggling for breath._

 _He was afraid of it. Though it was small and fragile and wounded, he did not want to approach it. Nevertheless he drew slowly nearer, ready to jump back at any moment. Soon he stood near enough to touch it, yet he could not bring himself to do it. He felt like a coward. He ought to comfort it, but it repulsed him._

"You cannot help it, son," said a husky, old and inexplicably familiar voice – one that he simply couldn't have heard before.

"Indeed you can't Harry, you brave, brave, wonderful man," spoke a second person. This was a very familiar voice, and one that he couldn't help but slightly resent.

"My little soldier boy did come marching home, after all," the other voice said.

Turning around, Harry saw that his reception committee consisted of two very old gentlemen – Dumbledore, and an unmistakably Asian person, or at least someone he would have placed in ancient imperialist Japan. He did know enough muggle history for that.

"Come, my dear boy, let us walk. Even death cannot honestly welcome that which seeks to defy it with evil so dangerous, it hurts the Universe," the other old man said. "Tea?" he offered.

"I am dead, that was the Horcrux, and you are here to receive me?" Harry asked Dumbledore mechanically, just to confirm.

"In order, not necessarily, yes, and yes," answered Dumbledore genially. He didn't seem to be dismayed at Harry's very apparent irritation at all.

"Am I supposed to understand that?"

"As it is always with the young, they prefer he directness of a lion-pup," the other old man remarked. "Tea?" he offered again, just as patiently as before.

Harry gave the man a strange look before he accepted the earthen cup and took a sip of the bitter liquid and nearly spat it out. "That's just bitter boiled leaf-juice!"

"And you haven't changed, at all, my son," the man happily claimed.

"So I am dead and insane as well?" Harry mumbled exasperatedly to nobody in particularly. "Sorry, sir, but I really can't be your son," Harry told the man with forced patience.

"You are ours," two voices answered, and these were more than welcome, as James and Lily shimmered into view. "But so are you his, Prince Lu Ten."

"Indeed you are, cousin," Sirius remarked.

"Okay; all of you stop. Can someone tell me exactly what is going on here? I just expected to be dead. You know, just normal dead, not breathing, not existing anymore?" he added sarcastically.

"Would you care to, Schemer?" asked the old man of Dumbledore. Well at least they could agree upon this.

"I suppose I shall. Harry, it is time that I tell you about the Order."

"I know about the Order of the Phoenix," Harry shortly replied.

"You do, yes. I was talking, however, of the Order of the White Lotus. It is an ancient order, one that doesn't belong to our world, but to other worlds that we coexist with. One of the worlds, in its slightly more medieval settings than you'd believe of the magical world, shares a mastery over the elements, Fire, Earth, Water and Air, which they called bending. That world along with several others is joined through the realm of Death to ours. They call it the Spirit World. This gentleman was, in life, the Grand Lotus of the Order, and has traversed the Spirit Realm, showing the path to lost souls. His name is General Iroh."

Harry stared at him open-mouthed.

"Harry?" Dumbledore called.

Harry looked around in what could now easily be recognised as sarcastic wonder. "And would you believe that? Albus "I know something you don't, and I am not telling" Dumbledore can talk straight! Wow! I never thought you could do that! Is it death, Professor? If it is, it certainly makes you more bearable!"

"Ah...well, that was intentional."

"Was it now?" growled Harry. "It was intentional you say. Did you bloody WELL INTEND FOR SO MANY PEOPLE TO DIE? HOW MANY MORE DEATHS AM I SUPPOSED TO SEE, YOU IDIOTIC OLD COOT? OR MAYBE, SINCE IT WAS YOUR INTENTION TO SEE ME HERE, MURDEROUS CONSPIRATOR?"

"Now, now, such an expression of the inner fire and power is alright on the battlefield, but it hardly warrants turning everything into the battlefield..." General Iroh chid.

"I don't have any patience for this. I just learnt that my Headmaster..."

"Please son, listen to him," his mother quietly ordered.

"Not the Headmaster, Harry, it was me who wanted to see you here, my beloved son. You have a greater destiny ahead."

Harry couldn't even dismiss it as a bad dream.

"How exactly am I your son?"

"You see, on our world, we have some very important events – one is called the Harmonic Convergence which occurs once every ten thousand of our years, which is about a third of the same time in your Earth's time, one is the complete Solar Eclipse which doesn't occur as frequently it does in your world, and the third is the appearance of Sozin's Comet which comes every hundred of our years. These are very peculiar, for the Eclipse takes away the power of firebenders for its entire duration while the Comet gives them the power of a thousand suns. And the Harmonic Convergence is our form of the ultimate battle between Good and Evil. It is this particular set of events that are occurring together on our world. Like the cycle of seasons, everything has to start, everything has to end, and then restart eventually."

"I do not understand."

"Fire, my boy, is Life. On the day of the Harmonic Convergence, there will be an Eclipse and there will be the reappearance of the Comet, all at the same time. Life will be empowered and snuffed out simultaneously. Our bending will be lost."

"So you are shifting to our earth?"

"No, child," James explained. "You know how waves are? Consider bending as a trough and magic as a crest, or the other way round. Slowly, magic will replace bending completely in their world..."

"While bending replaces magic in ours!" realised Harry.

"Exactly!" commended Iroh. "I am still amazed that you do not remember, my boy, because you volunteered to go to the new world for a specific task..."

"About that, General," James interrupted, "one doesn't remember if one has ties to life."

"Ah...I wondered."

"What's that supposed to mean Dad?"

"It means you aren't really dead. You can go back. You actually should go back," James replied, though he gave Iroh a deferring look with a grin.

"To defeat Tom?" asked Harry bitterly.

"No, Harry," Dumbledore solemnly answered. "You see, that world has known about the coming tide for about a four centuries now – their centuries, and that's twelve hundred of our years, something that has nothing to do with temporal displacement across the worlds. I am still unsure how it works. It was necessary for someone to reach out to the other world, and that was where the story of the three brothers came from. I was the only one before you who held the Wand, but chose not to use it. I searched to evade Death to bring back what was lost but realised the vileness and futility of the act. That was how the Grand Lotus found me. I was the Grand Lotus among the living, and I helped all members once I was sure of their identity. And that is now your job."

"You will take my position, son."

"Why do you call me son?"

"The spirit world houses the souls of all worlds. And it also helps the souls go to others. You came here from our world long before I did, which was why I was searching through it, my son. As I addressed you before, on our world, you were my son, Prince Lu Ten, my Heir."

"You mean I am not originally...?"

"Who can say?" Iroh wondered with a shrug. "You might have been from Earth that you now inhabit before you became Lu Ten. You might have been from someplace else. However, it was as Lu Ten that you chose to go after Vaatu. He was working over the past century in that world."

"Who's Vaatu?"

"Vatu is the Spirit that represents Evil."

"Can't it be destroyed?"

"Vaatu can hardly be destroyed as can Raava. For Good to be understood, it must have context and meaning, and that is what Evil provides. One can never exist without the other, my son."

"So I chose to be Harry Potter?"

"Yes. You chose your destiny, Lu Ten. You chose to hold off the one under Vaatu's sway till the tide turned and bending and the spirits had greater access to the New World. For only Raava can truly hold him, and for that we need the Avatar."

"That's not me, is it?"

"Most assuredly, no, it isn't you."

"Are there any other members? Were they my friends?"

"I confess that I did encourage your friendship with Ms. Lovegood. She was after all, the only one I knew who could see the Spirit World. I would not be surprised if she became the first Avatar on our Earth, with Air as her Element."

"Why Air?" asked Harry, now genuinely curious.

"Harry – I shall call you that because that is how I have known you – you do not think that the four Founders' animals were just their favourite animals, did you? The flaming Lion of Gryffindor, so similar to Lion-pups, and all our decoration has always lent itself to Fire, don't you see? The Badgers were inspired from Badger-Moles, the original Earthbenders. The Raven-Jays were the inspiration for the detached, academic and mostly spiritual Air Nomads' birds, though of course, I don't know any truly spiritual Ravenclaws anymore. And Salazar, as always, chose the Unagi, a water serpent. Indeed, he was of the belief that with such strong motifs, there already were benders here. And given that our world has Dragons too... It was why he left Hogwarts, on a fruitless search...not to kill muggleborns."

"Such lies must have hurt you, my friend," Iroh consoled.

"YOU were Salazar Slytherin?" Harry asked in shock.

"I was once, yes," Dumbledore answered. "As Albus Dumbledore, however, I was neither a Parseltongue nor could I understand or remember more than some rudimentary phrases. I assure you, I would have subdued my Basilisk otherwise."

"Is there anyone else who was on earth or still is from the other world? And for that matter, can you tell me who you were? Have I met them?" He decided that he was already beyond surprises.

"As I matter of fact, yes there were many," answered Sirius, who had been largely silent. "James, your blood father, was in fact Bumi, the King of Omashu. Lily was Sister Iola, of the Air Nomads." The three transformed into people that Harry now could faintly recognise. Maybe he was spending too long in the spirit world, Harry thought, even as Sirius transformed into a man with the left side of his face burnt. "I was your cousin, Fire Lord Zuko. I told you about Uncle Alphard. Uncle Iroh was my Uncle again. Of course, I tried to be tall, dark and broody, but then having King Bumi reincarnate as one's best friend rather changes one's outlook." Then his face twisted into agony. "You have also met my sister, Azula. She did manage to kill me, finally."

"Bellatrix was this Azula?"

"Oh yes... and you know Katara, she is Hermione now. Gyatso was always absurd, at least I think so from what Aang used to say, and I think Luna is him. I know Toph's there somewhere. In fact, there was this one aggravating General of the Earth Kingdom, one General Fong. You know him, Rufus Scrimgeour."

"We actually lived across two worlds and never realised it," marvelled Harry as he looked at his companions. "What happens now?"

"On the Summer Solstice four years hence, our worlds will be at the point of overlap. Magic will start waning. You shall find it within yourself too. You will have to scour the world for benders. The discovery of benders is sudden, across all ages, and scary. There might be large-scale disruptions. So you will have to be the Grand Lotus and use the Statute of Secrecy to explain it away as magic for the time being. You will have to help set up secluded areas, because our world is vastly different from theirs," Dumbledore explained.

"Indeed," added Lily, "many muggle governments will try to learn the secrets of bending. Your job will be to get to these people before anyone else does."

"Great, another quest," Harry groaned.

"A necessary one, all the same," James pointed out. "No one said you can't make a world trip out of it," he added with an odd grunting laugh. Then he added seriously, "Keep an eye out on tabloids, Harry. Often that which is ignored as nonsense is the most authentic."

"And remember to visit the Poles and keep watch," Iroh reminded, before adding with a smile, "Now there are someone who want to meet you."

Behind him a person shimmered into existence. A person he was going to dearly miss.

"Don't worry mate," Ron, who reached over first and embraced his best friend said. "You are going to win. Everything will be alright."

"I am sorry," Harry gasped.

"You should be if you moan and whine here, mate. Well, anyway," he started abruptly, "since everyone's telling things, I must do so too. You've got to visit the far-east. You will learn a lot there." He chuckled at his friend's expression. "Yes, you need to learn. And yes, I'm saying that."

"We'll miss you, mate."

"Yes well, I don't get to be your best man now. Maybe I'll become a lion-turtle next."

"You sound more and more like Luna every day."

"That I do," Ron replied wistfully. "Goodbye Harry. Send him to Koh's Lair for me."

"I will."

Harry gave a very mortal sigh as he came back to life again.


	15. Sherringford

**Sherringford**

One clever idiot created the problem. Another was in the process of aggravating it.

Never, never ever, had Mycroft Holmes, thought to be the cleverest person in his circles at least by the people who knew him (though he knew that there were by his estimate four others of equal or probably better brains; and with a grimace, he knew there was definitely one who was better), thought he would be in this position.

Oh, for the other one he was responsible for the continued internment (and to the other's eyes, interment) of. But he wasn't the final authority, the final signatory, which gave the order. That was Uncle Rudy.

The problem was that between the two cases, he at least could attempt to feel some sympathy for the kid he was faced with. Unlike the other, his own little sister, he had motive, and that motive had been a reason.

Just five hours ago, this kid, with green eyes and a very small frame, as well as an intensely serene expression as he contemplated the plate of biscuits in front of him, had burnt down his home – with his cousin, aunt and uncle inside it. Even if it wasn't for the fact that they were asleep, it wouldn't have made a lick of a difference.

It had been determined that they had been drugged before they had returned to their rooms. And the drugging was the result of a slow acting prescription sleeping pill that the male victim had bought. And in the only uneaten plate in the house, which had somehow, _somehow,_ survived the carnage, there were...traces of the same drug. It was enough to kill his little visitor several over.

There was no doubt how that crucial bit of evidence had survived.

It was not a miracle.

It was magic.

And yet it couldn't explain the various internal injuries that the woman and her husband had sustained.

Huh...magic. It was an intangible he had yet been unable to explain.

A secret society of magicals, real, scientifically unexplained power users existed. And the boy he was faced with was the one figure that had apparently yanked them out of a bloody civil war – a war that was led by a Dark Lord who hated non-magicals. And a non-magical had attempted to kill the boy. If the non-magical world knew what the boy had done, he would be remanded to judicial and a sanatorium's custody, _officially_. And people would know. And the boy's world would know.

And the consequences would be bad.

Sympathy was entirely foreign to Mycroft Holmes' constitution, and with the larger picture, that he, as an armchair strategist and practically _the_ omniscient, omnipotent mind saw, he knew there was only one true solution to the current problem if he wished the boy protected yet contained.

He really had never thought he would be in this position.

Mycroft Holmes had somehow become the person – the one in the minor position in the government – who knew about magic, and therefore was required to handle the punishment of the Boy-Who-Lived – and killed, as well.

"Prime Minister," was all he said as he spoke into the telephone, only barely managing to make his order sound like a request or advice, "Please step up to the completely tasteless picture in your room, the one that announced the untrustworthy Minister, and say, "Twinkle, Twinkle Blue Star.""

The Prime Minister, knowing that for all that Mycroft Holmes was insufferable, the man would never deign to crack a joke at his expense, and hearing the sheer distaste oozing through the man's voice, promptly did that.

Three minutes later, a very old man, with a demeanour that only made it patently obvious that he was far too spry, healthy and with very well-preserved faculties stood before Mycroft. This man was one of the four that Mycroft considered his equal.

"I had not expected a meeting under these circumstances," Dumbledore, the visitor, gravely said. The man was not the kind to observe and postulate or deduce, but his talents as one who could use any situation to his benefit were second to...only one.

That he was frazzled enough to forego his usual attempts at distracting conversations (Dumbledore never did get over being given a once over by Mycroft, which had told him that the man was of a sub-culture that was hidden, but poorly and then too only due to the fact that people were observant enough; that he was at least a centenarian despite looking like a septuagenarian; that he was a headmaster; that his choice of bed-mates was of the same gender as his own; and that he was a man of good intentions and _therefore_ extremely dangerous) told Mycroft that he knew enough about the situation.

"I don't want this becoming common knowledge – either to your people or mine."

"We can agree upon that," Dumbledore replied in relief. "I have prepared certain families for the eventuality..."

"You don't understand, Headmaster," Mycroft cut across smoothly. "A crime was committed. A juvenile crime though it was, it was entirely premeditated, I assure you. If he slips, the danger cannot be foretold."

"You surely do not mean...?"

"A remand home?" completed Holmes. "No. The level of precision that the child of five-and-half has exerted...no; he will be dangerous to anyone that aggravates him. That is an unconscionable risk to other children."

"He is a child!" Dumbledore protested. "Surely you shan't try to execute him?"

The gaze that was turned upon Dumbledore was as chilling as Tom Riddle's was. "I am not a murderer, Mr. Dumbledore." He frowned at the old man. "You are particularly interested in shielding the boy who has actually murdered his family – not accidentally killed, or in self-defence, but murdered – though if the preliminary investigation is an indication, it could very well have been my brother or his friend who did it out of a misplaced sense of righteousness, though both would vehemently deny it."

"You know what he means to..."

"You are not the only one with siblings with troubled pasts. Mine fortunately, survive."

Dumbledore stiffened at that. The damn man could read him like a book. He didn't need any explanation for how he reached that conclusion. Knowing as much as he knew was enough to correlate with his rather frantic defence of Harry.

"I am not in the habit of speaking other's secrets. But I can...empathise," Holmes assured with a twisted grimace. He had seen the Prime Minister being robbed of a memory, and had then acted similarly, having retreated into his mind to protect it when the wand had been turned on him. He doubted Dumbledore would try something so drastic, but needs must. He was too dangerous a man to forget about. "I worry; constantly."

Dumbledore remained silent for a while.

"What do you propose?"

"We need to know how and why he did it."

"Interrogation is a rather obvious thing to do. Especially when I am sure you have deduced the motives and the manner."

"Sometimes confirmation is better."

"You know that I am asking about his placement."

"Till he goes to your school," Holmes replied shortly, pushing a sheet of paper towards Dumbledore, "this is where he needs to be."

Dumbledore heard the 'if' that was substituted by the long pause and another word.

"It will be our responsibility of course, to ensure that there are no triggers that may provoke such a response again, but..."

The old wizard couldn't help but marvel at the man; the 'till' made it sound an assurance, but placed no time limit. And now this man sat to bargain. Well, two could play the game.

"We shall ensure that your secure facility is not breached by any of our kind."

Lame and rather transparent, though it was, it was the sort of audaciousness that being the foremost wizard in the country allowed. He had cut right through to the point where he had bypassed Holmes' "we have your asset" card, one that the man had been looking for, for quite some time, with his own, "we will be watching" card.

The next best thing to bargaining from a position of power was bargaining from a position of relative power. In this case, it was literal.

And Mycroft Holmes, knowing this man's position and what it entailed regarding magical-non-magical interactions, was in no position to avert that.

Both men sipped upon the rather decadent brandy that was to fortify them as they looked upon the child.

"I want to know," Dumbledore murmured musingly, as he rotated the glass in his hand around itself and stared at it, the curiosity-mingled sorrow apparent to his host. "Why and how did he do it?"

"The 'why' was rather patently obvious," Mycroft replied with a stifled shark-like smile. "It is a massive matter of worry for you that it was not...sensed."

Words...words were important. He would never use the 'see' that his brother so favoured; not when faced with this man who could and would worm his way out of and towards anything he set his mind to.

"Family," responded Dumbledore unconcernedly. Holmes held _those_ cards anyway; it would be no new information to make him vulnerable.

"It is a distraction – a vulnerability; and one of the largest reasons why people who assume based on such a fact go wrong."

"Indeed."

"I suppose we need to find out the 'how'."

The answer they got from the ruined innocence was as scary as it was terrible.

"They never liked me eating. When I saw her give me food with the special powder to make me 'not freakish' I wished her the same."

"But how could you beat them?"

"I did nothing. They beat each other up. Then they let to sleep."

And it was consistent with the autopsies. Incidentally, the boy's mandatory health check-up would reveal similar injuries, just old.

"Did you tell them to do it?"

"Why would anyone listen if some kid is telling them to beat someone up? Isn't that stupid?"

The two men looked at each other. The boy had not lied, but it was inconclusive in the eyes of any law that cared to check. To start with, the diction and the words and the obvious logic would make people question the boy's age.

Privately, both were terrified.

He was like her – only magical. Mycroft Holmes knew the kind of person he was; too well, in fact. Never mind the fact that Sherlock could sometimes calm her.

He was the same as the other, realised Dumbledore, the dawn of realisation painful and sudden. He suddenly understood what 'equal' meant.

And together, the two stalwarts of their respective governments made a horrible, horrible mistake.

Sherringford was warded for its newest prisoner.

* * *

Obviously post-Season 4, and regressed in time to the 1980's and onwards.

Temporal Penguin


	16. Brother

**Brother**

DO NOT READ IF YOU WANT TO READ STUFF THAT MAKES SENSE

So, before I get back to writing either "A Change of Villains" or "The True Story", I thought it would be wise to get a couple of bunnies off my mind – or at least into the memory stack till I access it again. It should be patently obvious as this one progresses that there won't be any pairings, though I am veering towards Honks, simply for its potential for humour.

* * *

There should have been a warning. Why the bloody hell was there no effing warning? If he'd known then he'd not have even bothered with the stone, or he'd have actually broken and tossed the damn wand away. But NO! He was Harry-bloody-Potter, and he was Murphy's muse when he wrote that damn law. And his friends and family were absolutely useless at helping him – actually useless. They were damn hindrances. Whenever his state changed, and if it was appropriate, Molly, Ginny (she was his girlfriend, damn it!), Hermione (unable to find a solution in the absence of a library; not that it'd have helped, since she didn't even know of the Hallows before) and whichever other girl/woman was present would start cooing over him.

Ron and the other Weasley brothers started treating him like a kid, as they had treated Ron years before.

Teddy found him an acceptable playmate. It felt weird, being a baby and having his entire set of memories but still wanting nothing more than for Padfoot to turn into a dog.

The bloody side-effect of being the freaking Master of Death was that he was de-aging randomly, for random durations and to random ages much less than his own. Apparently, if he never did grow old – or worse, as he now realised, grew younger – how was he ever supposed to reach his old age and die?

Ginny really hadn't been best pleased when her attempts at kissing him while he was eighteen temporarily got her a question about "lurgies and cooties" – thankfully only a scant few seconds before he turned into a nine-year-old. Then she had burst into laughter, and what should have been a magnificent snogging session turned into a torture session where he got his cheeks pulled.

Stupid Hallows. Stupid Master of Death. Stupid Death.

As it was, he was currently a broody fifteen while he was sulking behind a tree in the Weasley orchard. The good thing about being a teenager – younger than eighteen that is – was that nobody actually came to look for him. Sarcastic responses, grunts and such were not the most enchanting conversation aids. Then again, this spot could be seen from some of the windows.

Then there was a splitting headache as he receded to an age even younger – on the precipice of teenage.

That was bloody great, wasn't it?

A great surge of fear and terror overwhelmed him for a scant few seconds, before he felt the same sort of resignation he had felt as went into the forest for what he thought was the last moment of his life. Damn it. This thing wasn't natural. Another bloody side-effect, this feeling something that he had no real reason to feel. A few minutes later, he felt ridiculously light and happy, and then just as suddenly, he reverted to his eighteen-year-old self.

"Grrrraahhhharrr," he shouted out in frustration. Of course, it was supposed to be a growl, but as usual, it didn't end up right and ended up being a shout instead.

He'd had bloody enough of this. Whatever this was, it was caused by the thrice-damned Hallows. He was going to find out. So he held out the Elder Wand (the "protector" of the wand as he now was; cursed, more like) and summoned the Cloak and the Stone. He really should have thought better of this. He had never actively assumed all three Hallows simultaneously.

Hermione, who had seen Harry from the window, turning back to his normal self, and was hurrying out to call him in, only had time to be startled and call out his name as he vanished in a swirl of colours.

* * *

"What the bloody hell?" Harry shouted out to nobody.

"That's for calling me stupid," an aggravated gravelly whisper sounded out around him.

"Of course," Harry sarcastically retorted as he realised quite instantly. "Death, you bloody git, how are you?"

"Deathly," the entity replied. "I suppose saying that I am fine would be very antithetical to my meaning."

Harry had the distinct feeling that he was being leered at by some large predator.

"Isn't it enough that I have been in nothing but trouble all my life? Why don't you let me be?" he cried irritably.

"I neither asked those idiotic ancestors of yours to ask me for those gifts, nor did I ask you to collect them. They did. And you did. Now you have to bear the consequences."

"Growing younger and younger?" demanded Harry incredulously.

"Yes."

"Feeling stuff that I have no chance of having any relation to?"

"Yes. But you do have some relation to those...feelings."

"Please. Be direct."

"Fine. There are several parallel universes that have you in one form or the other. Your different ages and the different things you feel are what some Harry or Harry-like person in some universe is feeling at the moment."

"That's..." there were several less than polite words that he could summon but in the end he tamely settled for "ridiculous."

"It's not my problem," Death replied unconcernedly.

"How do you choose one of possibly many Harry's of the same age?"

"I don't. It is a matter of chance."

Harry was silent for a while. "Well, I suppose that was a nice joke. But I must move on..."

"To where you choose?"

"To where I choose?"

"You could choose to go back. Or you could choose to help the most recent Harry."

"Yeah, sure," Harry replied flippantly. "Let me humour you, then."

The blackness engulfed him instantly...

...and he woke up in the Chamber of Secrets to a Ginny and a younger redhead _boy_. What the hell?

He surely had spoken that aloud, for the older – now he could see that, because the Ginny-person was taller – one turned around with her wand pointed at him.

"Who are you?" she harshly demanded.

So, there was no time for acclimatisation or anything like that. That was the norm for him anyway.

"I am Harry Potter?"

"That's impossible!" screamed the young girl, who, Harry realised with some trepidation looked to be around twelve. She was backing away slowly – till Fawkes cried out a soothing tune, and settled upon his shoulder.

The girl looked at him oddly. Evidently Fawkes was good here as well.

"I swear I am Harry Potter, son of Lily Evans-Potter and James Potter, and I think, unless I am hallucinating, that I am in a parallel universe."

The boy was clearly out of it. Well, first things first, Harry decided to keep the redhead boy as safe as he could be. He was sent under a quick sleeping spell and even before he collapsed, the floor was covered with a cushioning charm. And he explained things as he did it.

Given that the girl, who was definitely not a Ginny – she didn't look like any of the Weasleys at all, but instead like his, Harry's mum, with hazel eyes – had her wand out, was wielding a tattered book, and there was a basilisk in the background, Harry immediately built a picture that was...troubling to say the least.

"You are a Potter aren't you? Perhaps you are the Girl-Who-Lived or something?" Confirmation was always a good thing. "That is a Weasley, and" what followed was a shot in the dark, but well, "is the first Weasley boy in many decades?"

"Yes to everything else, but no to the Weasley thing," the girl answered curtly. "Do you even know how impossible that would be?"

In retrospect, it was impossible. If there was no Weasley boy in several generations, how could there be a Weasley?

"I see that you understand _now_ ," the girl went on. "You are a bit dim, aren't you?"

Fawkes stopped singing and gave what was definitely a chortle.

"Hey!" protested Harry. "You don't know what I've been through! I am allowed some stupidity."

" _You_ don't know what..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Harry cut her off lazily. "There was a boy in a diary, the young Voldemort, who was a parselmouth, who possessed young Mr. Red here, who set a basilisk upon the school; but you are a parselmouth too, so you were suspected; then a best friend is attacked and this one is taken down; you were bitten by the dead snake over there, nearly died, but our dear old firebird saved you with his tears and here we are. Right. I have been there and done that."

The girl looked at him oddly. "You're wrong about the diary and the boy," and there was definite anger in the girl's voice as she spoke of the boy, "but right about everything else."

"Alright, better fill me in."

"That boy is Lady Veuve Noire's son. The mystery of how one of Mr. Prewett's brothers was killed has been solved."

"Lady who whose what with whom?"

"The Veuve Noire's son, presumably with Mr. Prewett's brother" the girl repeated irritably.

At this point, even Fawkes' singing couldn't control the sheer terror that Harry felt. If Snape was a woman here and James Potter was Jamie or something and the two had gotten over a catfight over Lillian Evans, he was getting out of this bloody parallel universe. He was anyway blocking the image of a male Molly.

"Who exactly was Veuve Noire?"

"She was the worst Dark Lady in eons. She went about bearing children with powerful wizards and killed the Wizards and the children became her followers and avatars. Every child keeps her alive. She is said to have over twenty five of these monsters."

Was Voldemort's female version serially breeding good enough a reason to puke? Perhaps even Tom would share his disgust?

"Your name? Your parents?"

"Julia Potter, **_only_** daughter of James Potter and Lily Evans," the girl snapped.

"You get told that you look like..."

"...my mum, but have my father's eyes?" completed the girl. "Yes."

"Who's your Potions teacher?"

"Professor Elena Prince."

Fawkes squawked and flew out as Harry projectile vomited. Snape pining for his mum was bad enough. A female Snape pining for his dad...Harry shuddered, swayed like an inebriated man, and then, like an inebriated man, passed out and fell into his own vomit.

"Eww," Julia commented with a scrunched face, before reviving him.

Harry curled into the foetal position and whimpered.

"Do you like lying in your own vomit?"

"It's better than facing the world, sometimes."

On balance, Julia decided, it was a true enough statement.

"You have to though."

Harry whimpered some more. He had a one more confirmation to make. "I suppose you have an Uncle Patrick and Aunt Veronica, and a cousin Delia or something?"

"Wrong about the cousin, she is Dorothy, but right about the rest of the Evanses."

"She was Veronica Dursley first, wasn't she?"

"Yes."

"Are you happy with them? You can tell me honestly, because I hated Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon and cousin Dudley."

"I have no choice. It was good till gran lived with us, but she died five years ago."

"Whoever placed you there..." Harry swallowed some bile as he imagined Alberta Dumbledore, "said that you were safe there?"

"Yeah."

"I promise you I can clean up myself and everything, and I have defeated my Dark Lord, who was a very good person compared to your Wow Noire..."

"Veuve Noire," Julia corrected half-heartedly.

"Yes her," Harry grunted as he imagined an alliance between him and Voldemort to defeat this insult to the entirely decent human being Tom was. "I have defeated me version of her. And if I can prove that I am your closest living relative, would you like an older brother?"

"Do I get to torment you?"

"You can't do anything worse than my own imagination does, so try, little girl, but don't be disappointed if you fail miserably."

Julia couldn't help but grin.

* * *

Elena Prince, the Head of Slytherin, turned out not to be the problem at all. She was their mother's best friend but that was about it. It was, instead, Penelope Pettigrew, the local universe's charms mistress and, thankfully, not the Head of Ravenclaw. If she was a Death Eater analogue who told Wow Noire the prophecy, she was dying horribly. Harry dreaded the Alberta Dumbledore already. A female Filius Flitwick, a male McGonagall and others were all prospects that made him shudder. This universe was all wrong. Thankfully, while Maxwell McGonagall was a strict Transfiguration master, Albert Dumbledore – neither Albus nor Alberta - and Filius Flitwick were as normal as he could hope. This he could work with. Statistically, it seemed, about a third of all people he knew had the right plumb...er...genders.

Then something truly horrible crossed his mind. What were Remus and Sirius here? That was a question that made him want to pass out again. And if Julia was friends with a male Hermione and a female Ron or someone like that, then it would be terrible. Horrible.

"Fuck you, Death," Harry softly swore.

This Universe was not done giving him shocks. Lucia Black, and Nostradamus Black, had a _son_ Draco Black. Why the fuck ever? And Julia seemed to be enamoured of the git the same way his old Hermione was of Ron. Alright. He would accept many things. But his female self was bloody well not crushing on Malfoy or his analogue. That's what big brothers were for...wait a damn minute.

 _He_ was the big brother here. _He_ got to take care of Julia. _He_ could scare off boys. _He_ could control things – well most of them anyway. The rest of the things? Well it seemed as if the Universe was particularly detested as it didn't seem to have much of Marauderdom. Here he was, the Master of Death, destined to remedy it.

Julia wondered whether she'd not been too hasty when she found her dimensional analogue cackling madly. She had that dark, dark feeling that she was going to regret this.

The good thing about the whole fiasco was that it indeed was Lucia who had slipped the Diary which would wake up her Mistress' son. Feminist Death Eaters. Great. As if just being Death Eaters was not enough without them screaming "Girl Power." Of course, since he had to live with his sister, he was wise enough to not voice that thought. Hermione and Ginny had cured him of the affliction which caused his mouth to speak whatever his brain thought.

With the cloak donned, he turned the parents into Lucius and Narcissa, so at least it was easy to torment them. Then a large neon signboard appeared above them. "The fucking bastards who slipped a diary to murder children. Do not allow such monsters around children." Then little Draco had a sudden wet spot on his trousers and a small tap on his shoulders which caused him to shriek. This was just the teaser. If this didn't disabuse Julia of any stupid thoughts, there would be escalation. Best not to threaten and have a Draco/Julia situation where she would not listen to him and go off with the little shit instead.

"Did you have to do it?" Julia hissed in embarrassment, as Harry left with her to check places to live in the castle for the night before presenting himself before the local Dumbledore and claim guardianship.

"Obviously," Harry replied. "I know how you have a little girly crush on him. Now I don't care if that's someone safe, whom I can torment and yet be a bit sure of, but murderous scoundrels and their spawn? No. I might make him hate you."

"You are horrible!"

"That comes with the big brother territory, Jules." Yes. She had to have a nickname.

"Don't call me Jules."

"Not Jules? Okay, how about Watt?"

She gave him an aggravated glare.

"Alright, Jules it is. No changes."

"I hate you."

"Yes. I think I might grow to love you too, little sister."

Julia knew she was right. She was going to regret this.

* * *

Don't flame me. If after the warning you still read, it's your damn fault.


	17. Uncle

**Uncle**

 **Summary:** Every once in a while, there were a few students that made their place in his cold, dead, non-existent heart. And then, he would take a few requests, and ever-so-rarely, an order. And he would look out for their children too, even more rarely. With nobody else around, from that cold, dead, non-existent heart sprung a well of responsibility.

 **Disclaimer: NOT MEANT TO BE SENSIBLE. IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR BIG EMOTIONS, A LOT OF SENSE OR ANYTHING OF THAT SORT, TURN AWAY NOW. THIS IS THE POINT OF NO RETURN.**

I know I am supposed to work, and when I have free time, I am supposed to complete my two current stories, but you can blame work stress for this one – The Temporal Penguin.

May 1978

Having just rigged a bunch of armoured knights to serenade, fight over and finally for one to ask for the hand of the fair maiden, Minerva McGonagall; having stolen all of Pomona Sprout's dragon dung reserves, transfigured it into a flying dragon that would periodically excrete over the trees and the plants and every flowering shrub as it progressively became small and breathe fire from both ends; having erected a charm on the entrance to the Great Hall so that once Dumbledore passed through it, he too would baulk at the psychedelic colours that his robes would flash, to avenge seven years of horrible sartorial choices that encouraged many a student to consider lobotomy; having cast a charm on the Slytherin tables to ensure that they would only understand each other if they hissed at each other, that is, having set in motion their cascaded farewell prank, the fearsome foursome, M/s Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, were seated in a classroom.

They were not alone – they were with their greatest ally, and truest friend, encouraging him as he wrote rude limericks on the Protean Charm enabled board with a chalk that screeched in an unholy manner with each motion, and suggesting a few limericks too. Both the words and the sound would be transmitted to the target classroom.

Their friend shed a nostalgic, mirthful ethereal tear, as he cackled with laughter. Such small children they were once, before the five had discovered each other. Never in his memory had any other students made him feel so proud, so, so proud, and wanted. He would miss them.

"I am going to miss this place," Moony wistfully remarked. "So many anguished shouts from so many who faced our pranks," he added with a sniff.

"Not even the Shrieking Shack has that kind of wails, and we would know," Sirius added sadly.

"Our Map, our creation, lost, but it bears testament to the fact that we became one with this place," Wormtail sighed. He became poetic when he had one firewhiskey too many.

"But more than that, we will miss you, mate," James addressed their friend.

Peeves the Poltergeist stopped writing, sniffed (of course with an exaggerated snot-bubble), "I never thought I would say it Potty, but I sure will miss your brand of naughty."

"Wow, you're really sad. That was horrible," Sirius idly remarked, flicking a rolled-up booger at the poltergeist, which promptly split around it and sealed back up just as quickly to show that it was lodged within him.

"Nobody appreciates a good laugh," Peeves bemoaned. "Now who will I have to share laughs with?"

It was a serious question. Peevsie was tied to the school. They had to look out for their friend. Then Moony had a bright idea.

"Peevsie, we might be gone, but one day, our spawn will come here. Our spawn, most likely disciplined by women like Lily, will come here. We need someone to look after them, to teach them our ways, especially if we are not there what with..." he trailed off, waving his hand vaguely to indicate the Dark Lord and his war. "Would you...?"

Peeves burst into boisterous tears and blew his nose and launched an ectoplasmic globule of snot at Sirius who dodged.

"My friends!" he cried. "My truest friends!" he exclaimed again. "I will never forget! Of course I will corrupt your hell-spawn!"

###

August 1980

Peeves looked upon the baby that James and Lily had brought to show off at Hogwarts. They had made Sirius the godfather of the little brat. Well Sirius couldn't be there all the time for it. And what use were babies? They were just whiny, crying, mewling puddles of flesh that were living dungbombs that needed to be tended to.

But when James, so very whipped, and so very gracious a husband, carefully suggested that his wife sit for a bit while he showed his son around, and instead brought the baby to be shown to Peeves, even the poltergeist was touched. Marriage certainly hadn't destroyed all the fun from James.

Peeves took one look at the thing and grinned in a hideously creepy manner, a manner designed to scare. He was sure that the baby would cry.

Instead, little Harry laughed.

Peevsie was astounded and his expression turned thoughtful.

Harry whined.

The poltergeist blew a raspberry.

The baby smiled again.

That happened once more, when he burst himself into smithereens (not that it would hurt him) with a startlingly loud bang and Harry decided that it was the most brilliant thing he had seen in his short life – till another slimy, colourful pop heralded Peeves' return and that became the most brilliant thing.

Peeves, the Hogwarts Poltergeist, looked at his friend proudly. "You have bred true, my friend," he declared.

"I know. I still find it astounding."

"That you now hold proof that Lily allowed you to touch her?" the poltergeist slyly asked.

"That too," agreed James. James turned thoughtful as the baby babbled and cooed. "Say, Peeves, I just meant to remind you..."

"Never fear, naughty Potty. Little Potty will be Pottier and naughtier. I solemnly swear that he shall be up to no good."

###

He heard things about James and Peter dying and of Sirius' arrest in November 1981. The castle was treated to some of the most vicious pranks for the rest of the academic year.

It wasn't until 1989 when he made some new friends. Fred and George were so like the Marauders, that he just couldn't help it. For a dead man-turned-poltergeist, who turned into a ghost because he feared being forgotten as he was ignored in life, Peeves had a whole eternity to recapture lost chances of being remembered. After he got the blame for a prank they pulled, and both the blame being transferred and the prank itself were successful, they caught his attention. And he tested them for a whole year, before he got them into trouble with Filch, and led them to the Marauders' Map. Being trapped in an inflatable balloon was a wonderful response.

###

1st September, 1991

He was coming to Hogwarts. The hell-spawn of Potty was coming to Hogwarts. It was time for the ghost who'd been tied to the castle to start his work, as James had trusted him to do. Hopefully Loony Moony had done some work otherwise he would have to undo a lot of good habits, a lot of innocence and whatever other things that go into making a mature young man.

But when he turned up to see the nice little baby that had grown into the runt, Peeves was flabbergasted, irritated and disgusted. Not that it was the kid's fault. Someone had made the runt so fearful and innocent, Peeves was astounded that Harry had made into Gryffindor at all.

"Obeying prefects?" murmured Peeves to himself. "This must be remedied." It must be considered that such words were too large for Peeves' dictionary, but for the remaining shred of the sanity of this chronicler, they are used. Rude limericks, Peeves' standard thought patterns, are a gift that this chronicler doesn't have – and they are a bit too rude to convey to innocent listening ears, or reading eyes. That's an insult by the way, and if you haven't taken umbrage at being called innocent yet, then may the Heavens help you, for there is no hope.

So, insults aside, (hopefully you are at least a little irritated by now, if nothing else) Peeves was perturbed. So perturbed was he, in fact, that the walking sticks, stolen from the various professors slipped. At least they were falling on the Prefect. What in the name of the Founders had the Weasels been smoking when they birthed this stick-in-the-mud? Peeves quickly acted as if he was pelting Prefect Percy with the sticks before dropping the rest on Fatty Fatbottom. No. Longbottom; or whatever the hell the kid's name was. Fatty Fatbottom sounded better though.

Peeves, rightly, was furious. And he was worried that the kid would be further destroyed by the little witch spouting about Hogwarts: A History. He stewed for a whole week, only setting off Myrtle for sustenance, and otherwise had such a bad week that he was rude to the Baron and didn't bother to apologise.

He ended up just going through the motions of being Peeves for a month.

In the end, the little brat did it. He broke the rules – and bloody well got placed on the Gryffindor Quidditch team as a first year for that. He was listening even after the Batty Catty Mango Mall drove him from the room. But the motivation was all wrong. Nothing wrong with taking a Malfoy down several pegs, but he did some stupid noble shite to help a friend instead of pranking him? Gods above, the kid needed help. And Peeves had to step in.

"Potty!" he cackled as Harry made to leave, hounding him away from the route that would take him straight back to the Gryffindor common room like a good little kid.

"Oh no," Harry muttered resignedly.

"Tell me Potter, you rotter, why is my good friend's brat such an uppity straight-laced twat?"

"My parents were your friends?"

"Just your father, your mum would curse me rather, for she was an irritating swot, loving rules like a damn bureau-bot."

Horrible rhymes were among Peeves' many skills. As was making up words like bureau-bot.

"Hey, watch it," Harry retorted angrily.

"Calm it Potty. She was good fun on some days, but she was an evil, evil, rule-loving, prank-not-pulling, overly caring, cautious about offending, standing up for the oppressed sort of grown woman that the kid called James had the monumental misjudgement to fall in love with. But let's keep that aside. I met you when you were a wiggling puddle of flesh, and loved loud noises, fun as we called it and everything. What happened? Was Loony Moony too disciplined?"

"Who's Loony Moony?"

"You don't know?" Peeves demanded in a truly horrified tone. "Maybe you know him as Remus?" If the answer was yes, he was pranking the hell out of Moony the first chance he got.

"Er...sorry, no."

Peeves let out a loud, wet noise that many people, including Harry would have mistaken for a fart, but in reality was a wail of dismay.

Peeves was dead. He had no beating heart. He had no pulse, and lived for nothing more than fun and mischief and tormenting the denizens of Hogwarts. Yet, every once in a while, there were a few students that made their place in his cold, dead, non-existent heart. And then, he would take a few requests, and ever-so-rarely, an order. And he would look out for their children too, even more rarely. With nobody else around, from that cold, dead, non-existent heart sprung a well of responsibility.

This was that moment.

"Alright, Potty, old Peevsie is going to do what your daddy told me to, if this happened and you were too good. The son of my living brother, in such a horrid spot of bother," he wailed.

"You were like brothers? What are you, some sort of dead Uncle?"

"Uncle?" frowned Peeves. "To quick to respect anyone, another problem, but not number one." He shook his wispy head. "I am just Peeves. And I am going to do what James trusted me to do. I am going to protect you from the greatest ailment in the world, boy."

"What is that?"

"Maturity."


End file.
